NDA Sweeps All 5 Rajya Sabha Seats In Bihar As CM Nitish Kumar, BJP's Nabin Nabin Elected; 4 Congress-RJD MLAs Skip Vote

Patna: NDA on Monday swept the Rajya Sabha election in Bihar by winning all five seats with chief minister and JD (U) president Nitish Kumar, BJP national president Nitin Nabin being elected to the upper house in keenly contested polls.

Thakur, Kushwaha, Shivesh Ram Also Win

Other NDA candidates who won the RS polls in Bihar are union minister of state for agriculture and farmers welfare Ram Nath Thakur from JD (U), RLM president and former union minister Upendra Kushwha and former MLA Shivesh Ram from BJP. Ram was the fifth candidate of the NDA in the polls.

Nitish, Nitin, Thakur, and Kushwaha were declared elected on the basis of first preference votes. While Nitish and Nitin got 44 first preference votes each, Thakur and Kushwaha got 42 votes each. A candidate needed 41 first-preference votes to secure a berth in the upper house. BJP candidate Shivesh Ram secured 30 votes and won the fifth seat with the help of second-preference votes by defeating the Mahagathbandhan candidate Amarendra Dhari Singh.

Four MLAs From Opposition Skip Vote

While three MLAs from Congress – Surendra Prasad Kushwaha (Valmiki Nagar), Manoj Biswas (Forbesganj), Manohar Prasad Singh (Manihari) did not cast their votes in the RS polls, RJD MLA from Dhaka Faisal Rahman also abstained from the voting. Mahagathbandhan could get only 37 votes in the polls.

While NDA with 202 MLAs required three additional votes from the opposition camp to ensure that alliance`s all five candidates won their seats, Mahagathbandhan with 35 MLAs needed six additional votes to touch the requisite mark to win a seat in the upper house.

For the opposition alliance, a victory in the RS polls was unlikely as numbers were heavily stacked against it but RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav became optimistic about the victory after AIMIM extended its support to him. RJD had re-nominated Singh as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls. Although all five AIMIM MLAs and lone BSP MLA Satish Yadav voted in favour of the Mahagathbandhan candidate, the opposition alliance suffered a defeat in the polls due to three Congress MLAs and one RJD MLA skipping the voting process.

Explaining his position on why he could not vote in the polls, RJD MLA Faisal Rahman said that he was keen to cast his vote but could not do so due to deterioration in his mother`s health. “Nothing is bigger than mother’s health,” he remarked.