RJD president and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav on Wednesday triumphed over his BJP rival Rajiv Pratap Rudy in Chapra Lok Sabha constituency by about 70,000 votes, delivering the final punch on the battered NDA to take his party's tally in the Lok Sabha to 24.
Yadav's victory demolished all hopes the NDA might have had of stalling the RJD-led secular alliance's juggernaut with its tally remaining stuck at 11. Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats.
Of the 24 seats in RJD's kitty, Palamu and Chatra are in Jharkhand.
With Yadav's win in Chapra, the secular alliance comprising apart from RJD, the Congress and Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Jan Shakti party, shot up to 29. While the Congress won three of the four seats it contested. The LJP bagged four of the eight it fought. The RJD, which was allotted 26 seats as part of the electoral arrangement, put up a spectacular showing winning 22. Other two secular alliance partners-NCP and CPI-M, failed to open their account.
The JD-U, which had contested 24 seats could manage to win only six and the BJP pocketed five trying its luck in 16 constituencies.
{{/usCountry}}The JD-U, which had contested 24 seats could manage to win only six and the BJP pocketed five trying its luck in 16 constituencies.
{{/usCountry}}The NDA had won 30 of the 40 seats in Bihar in the 1999 general election with JD-U garnering 18 and BJP 12.
Rudy is the seventh minister in the erstwhile Vajpayee government from Bihar to have lost the 2004 general elections the others being Sharad Yadav, CP Thakur, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Hukumdeo Narain Yadav, Sanjay Paswan and Digvijay Singh.
With Yadav's win in Chapra, the secular alliance comprising apart from RJD, the Congress and Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Jan Shakti party, shot up to 29. While the Congress won three of the four seats it contested. The LJP bagged four of the eight it fought. The RJD, which was allotted 26 seats as part of the electoral arrangement, put up a spectacular showing winning 22.
NDA constituent JD-U, which had contested 24 seats, could manage to win only six and BJP bagged five trying its luck in 16 constituencies.
The NDA had won 30 of the 40 seats in Bihar in the 1999 general election with JD-U garnering 18 and BJP 12.