NDA sweeps all five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar, Mahagatbandhan suffers setback

After receiving a severe drubbing in the recently-held Bihar Assembly polls, the Mahagatbandhan suffered yet another jolt on Monday when the NDA made a clean sweep during the Rajya Sabha election winning all the five seats.

The Rajya Sabha poll in Bihar was being watched with bated breath as the winners included Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, (who is making his debut to the Upper House in Parliament), BJP national president Nitin Nabin, Union Minister and senior JD (U) leader Ramnath Thakur, former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha and BJP leader Shivesh Kumar.

Divided they fall

The RJD-led Mahagatbandhan had itself to blame as all its “unity efforts” went for a toss when three Congress MLAs and an RJD MLA did not turn up for voting.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Bihar Congress president Rajesh Ram, however, blamed the BJP for the Mahagatbandhan’s loss and accused the saffron camp of using “money and muscle power” during the Rajya Sabha election.

“Three of the Congress MLAs remained unreachable for the last two days,” said the Bihar Congress chief.

Electoral Maths

To win an election in the biennial polls, a candidate needed 41 votes each to romp home. Given the fact that the NDA had 202 MLAs in the 243-member House, victory of four Rajya Sabha nominees was certain.

The contest took place for the fifth seat where the BJP’s Shivesh Kumar was pitted against the outgoing RJD Rajya Sabha MP, AD Singh.

The NDA, after its vote to the four candidates, had 38 surplus votes, but was still short of three votes. The Mahagatbandhan, which has 35 MLAs, was six short of the magic figure of 41.

The five MLAs from AIMIM and one MLA from BSP pledged support to Tejashwi, thereby taking the numbers of Mahagatbandhan to 41. But during the voting on Monday, four MLAs from Mahagatbandhan – Surendra Prasad Kushwaha, Manoj Biswas and Manohar Prasad (all Congress) and Faisal Rehman (RJD) did not turn up.

Eventually, when 239 members out of 243 MLAs voted, Nitish and Nitin Nabin emerged the front runner bagging 44 first preference votes. They were followed by Ramnath Thakur and Upendra Kushwaha who secured 42 votes each.

The fifth candidate Shivesh Kumar of the BJP secured 30 first preference votes, but emerged victorious with the help of second preference votes, thereby defeating RJD’s AD Singh.