Patna: Of the 243 seats in the Bihar Legislative Assembly that went to the polls, 40 seats saw an extremely close race where the margin of victory was less than 3,500.
Of these, the winning margin was less than 1,000 in 11 seats. In Hilsa, for example, Rashtriya’s candidate Janata Dal lost to Janata Dal’s (United) candidate by just 12 votes.
A small margin helped the National Democratic Alliance – the JD (U), the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) – to victory in 21 seats.
Meanwhile, the RJD emerged victorious in a nail-biting contest in 10 seats, Congress in 5 seats and the CPI (ML) and CPI in one seat each. The only independent candidate who was victorious also won by a small margin.
BJP candidate Surendra Mehta won the Bachwara seat by just 484 votes, defeating CPI candidate Awadhesh Kumar Rai.
In Bakhri, CPI candidate Suryakant Paswan defeated BJP’s Ramesh Paswan by 777 votes.
In the Barbigha seat, JD (U) candidate Sudarshan Kumar defeated Gajanand Shahi from Congress by just 113 votes. Similarly, Krishnamurari Sharan of JD (U) won Hilsa’s seat by just 12 votes defeating RJD candidate Atri Muni alias Shakti Singh Yadav.
In the Bhorey assembly constituency of the Gopalganj district, Jitendra Paswan of CPIML lost to Sunil Kumar of JD (U) by 462 votes. The CPIML has demanded a recount of votes in the seat claiming that the local deputy of JD (U) was present illegally during the vote count.
The CPIML also lost the Arrah seat by a narrow margin; its candidate Kyamuddin Ansari was defeated by BJP candidate Amrendra Kumar Singh by 3,002 votes.
Meanwhile, another CPIML candidate, Birendra Prasad Gupta, won the Sikta assembly seat in West Champaran by 2,302 votes, and independent candidate Dilip Verma and candidate JD (U) finished second and third respectively.
The Lok Janshakti Party managed to pocket just one seat that arrived late in the day. In Matiharni, LJP candidate Rajkumar Singh defeated Narendra Kumar Singh of JD (U) by just 333 votes.
Independent candidate Sumit Kumar Singh won the Chakai seat by defeating Savitri Devi of RJD by 581 votes.
In Parbatta, the JD (U) candidate won by a difference of 951 votes. Similarly, the JD (U) candidates managed to win the Jhajha assembly constituency by 1,679 votes, Mahishi by 1,630, Belhar by 2,473, Pranpur by 2,972, Raniganj by 2,504, Sakra by 1,537 and Triveniganj by 3,031.
In heavy fighting in Munger, Parihar, Hajipur, Amnour and Arrah, the BJP won by 1244, 1569, 2990, 3002 and 3002 respectively.
The RJD has also won several seats by a narrow margin. The party’s candidates won by 2,723 votes in Alauli, 2,704 in Bajpatti, 2,141 in Rural Darbhanga, 464 in Dehri, 2,687 in Dhoria, 1,193 in Kalyanpur, 712 in Kurhani, 189 in Ramgarh, 1,759 in Simri Bakhtiarpur and 1,973 in Siwan.
However, the RJD also lost many seats due to a miniscule difference. The electoral districts include Alinagar, Bahadurpur, Belhar, Chakai, Hajipur, Hilsa, Jhajha, Mahishi, Munger, Parihar, Raniganj, and Triveniganj.
Of the 19 seats that Congress won, a close four-seat contest was witnessed, as the party won by a small margin of 2,243 votes in Aurangabad, 1,113 in Bhagalpur, 1,381 in Kishanganj and 1,976 in Maharajganj.
In five other seats, namely Pranpur, Sakra, Tikri, Barbigha and Amarpur, the party fought hard but lost by 2,972, 1,537, 2,630, 113 and 3,114 votes, respectively.
Translated from the Hindi by Naushin Rehman.
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