Division of secular votes led to poll debacle: RJD

Restricted to only four of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, RJD on Wednesday said its poor showing in the just-concluded polls was mainly due to the division of secular votes and not because of the "so-called" development agenda of Nitish-Kumar NDA government.

Restricted to only four of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, RJD on Wednesday said its poor showing in the just-concluded polls was mainly due to the division of secular votes and not because of the "so-called" development agenda of Nitish-Kumar NDA government.

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"The misconception among the secular voters that Congress was also in the race made a huge dent in our vote base," Ram Kripal Yadav, RJD national general secretary, told reporters in Patna.

This misconception was spread by the NDA and had it not been the case the secular votes would have gone to the RJD-LJP combine, he said.

Claiming that the people did not vote for the "much hyped" development agenda of the NDA, he said those who said so were not ready to accept the ground realities.
"Today all political equations are being formulated on the social base of the party ... This is the crude reality." If development had been a poll issue, RJD would have been the biggest beneficiary as party supremo Lalu Prasad had done a lot for the development of the state during his five-year stint as railway minister, he claimed.

RJD was restricted to 4 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar this elections, 18 less than what the party bagged in the 2004 general polls.