Click to play videoNew Delhi: Happy times are here again for Lalu Prasad and his party RJD. Just when people were beginning to write his political obituary, the RJD strongman has bounced back winning eight out of the 18 seats that went for by-polls along with Ram Vilas Paswan. And this was the perfect shot in the arm for Lalu ahead of next year’s Assembly polls in the state.
“This result will shatter Nitish's over confidence,” said Lalu.
This result is being seen as a mini-referendum for the Nitish Kumar government ahead of state Assembly polls.
A mandate of this sort was the last thing the NDA camp in Bihar was expecting. If these results are any indication then Lalu and Paswan's social engineering will give a tough fight to what Nitish calls development-based administration.
For the JDU and the Congress, the results were like a wake up call. An impressive show in the Lok Sabha polls had rekindled hopes of a Congress revival in Bihar. Now while Nitish has managed just three seats the Congress had to be content with two.
“Congress was also a factor in these by-elections. It ate into our vote bank helping RJD and LJP,” Nitish said.
The only spoiler in what would have been a perfect day for Lalu was his successor and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's decision ordering a CBI probe into a land scam, which was first exposed by IBN 7. Lalu is amongst the main accused in the scam.
“This is not against any individual or my predecessor, the matter is related to RRB (Railway Recruitment Board) and RRC (Railway Recruitment Committees),” Mamata said.
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