Bihar bypolls (2014)- Time for reality check

by Jitesh Sinha
25 August 2014

Bihar bypoll election results are out. BJP underperforming and "grand coalition" as termed winning more seats than expected. A quick scan through various news items published since the trends started coming out pointed more or less towards whether Modi wave has failed to sustain in Bihar. Senior BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain was quick to put the responsibility on state unit.

Since quite some time in India's political arena every discussion seems either pro or against Modi. Are we overlooking some of the obvious facts while inclining our argument towards pro or against Modi ?

The voting percentage was quite low at 47%. As I mentioned in my other article written a while ago "India Election 2014 - Is the change there?" that indeed there was many firsts in India's election history though it will be early to say whether the same consistency would be seen in upcoming elections as well.

In my view people felt the urgency in Bihar after years of RJD regime and voted overwhelmingly for the change. Analogy can be drawn in parliamentary election 2014 as well. It was years of congress failing on people expectations and when it became almost unbearable the voting percentage touched as high as 80% in some of the constituencies where people wanted to ensure the change.

It is difficult to say what would happen when the state goes into election next year but this result will make political parties realize that they would have to work hard as competition is indeed there.

Bihar bypoll results 2014

Banka - Ramnarayan Mandal (BJP) defeated Iqbal Hussain (RJD) with a margin of 711 votes
Narkatiyaganj - Rashmi Verma (BJP) defeated Faqruddin Khan with a margin of 15742 votes
Rajnagar - Ram Avtar Paswan (RJD) defeated Ram Paswan (BJP) with a margin of 3448 votes
Jale - Rishi Mishra (JDU) defeated Ramniwas Paswan(BJP) with a margin of 7720 votes
Chapra - Randhir Kumar Singh (RJD) defeated independent Dr C.N. Gupta with a margin of 24106 votes
Hajipur - Avadesh Singh (BJP) defeated Rajendra Rai (JDU) with a margin of 6127
Mohiddin Nagar - Ajay Kumar (RJD) defeated Rajesh Kumar Singh (BJP) with a margin of 21530 votes
Parbatta - Ramanand Prasad Singh (JDU) defeated Suheli (LJP) with a margin of 56990 votes
Bhagalpur - Ajit Sharma (Cong) defeated Nabhaya Kumar Chaudhary (BJP) with a margin of 17229 votes
Mohania - Niranjan ram (BJP) defeated Chandra Sekhar Paswan (JDU) with a margin of 19851 votes