# India

BJP shines in Bihar legislative council polls

thestatesman.com | July 10, 2015 10:21 am

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has again outnumbered the ruling Janata Dal (United) (JD-U) in Bihar by winning 11 seats out of 24 seats in the legislative council biennial election of the state on Friday.

The ruling JD (U) managed to register win only in five seats while its alliance partner Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won four seats and the Congress won one seat, taking the total alliance tally to 10.

The BJP&’s winning candidates include Sachidanand Rai from Chapra, Aditya Pandey from Gopalganj, Rajan Singh from Aurangabad, Sunil Singh from Darbhanga and Dilip Jayaswal from Purnea, Santosh Singh from Sasaram, Hari Narayan Chaudhary from Samastipur, Suman Mahaseth from Madhubani, Tunnaji from Siwan, Rajanish from Begusarai and Bablu Gupta from Motihari.

BJP&’s alliance partner Lok Janshakti Party&’s (LJP) leader from Saharsa, Nutan Singh also won the elections.

Meanwhile, in the JD-U, Reena Yadav from Nalanda, Dinesh Singh from Muzaffarpur, Manorama Devi from Gaya, Salman Ragib from Nawada and Manoj Yadav from Bhagalpur won the elections.

RJD candidate Subodh Rai from Hajipur, Radhacharan Shah from Ara-Buxar, Sanjay Prasad from Munger and Radhacharan Shah from Bhojpur also emerged victorious.

Congress leader Rajesh Ram won from Bettiah.

Two independent candidates also won the polls. Ritlal Yadav, who is lodged in Patna&’s Beur jail, won from Patna, Yadav, a criminal-turned-politician, is considered close to RJD. Another independent candidate, Ashok Yadav, won from Katihar, who was backed by the BJP.

The election for the 24 seats of Bihar Legislative Council was held on Tuesday with an estimated 94 per cent voting turnout recorded during the polls. Altogether, 152 contestants were in the fray for the seats.

The legislative council election was termed ‘semi-final’ by many political experts before the assembly election which is scheduled later this year.