Bihar boots out most MLAs who defected just before the elections

The voters of Bihar have denied a return to power to most MLAs who had defected for the Assembly elections after being denied ticket by their own parties. 

A total of 12 defectors — candidates who were members of a party pre-election but changed to another to contest the polls — who were MLAs in the previous Assembly were in the fray as candidates of five major parties. Of them, eight candidates — or 75 per cent — lost.

Most of them — eight — had found patronage in the Janata Dal (United) headed by Nitish Kumar, while the remaining four major parties, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), fielded one each.

Only two of the eight defector MLA candidates fielded by JD(U) won the elections. While Dhirendra Pratap Singh won from Valmikinagar, Sudarshan Kumar registered a victory in Barbigha. They were previously associated with the RJD and Congress, respectively.

The defected candidates who lost the elections on the JD(U) ticket are Maheshwar PD Yadav, Chandrika Roy, Birendra Kumar, Jai Vardhan Yadav, Ashok Kumar and Purnima Yadav.

The BJP had given ticket to a candidate who was an Independent MLA from Daraundha in the previous Assembly. He won in this election, too, with a margin of 11,320 votes.

Another candidate who managed to win the election after defecting was Anant Singh from Mokama. He contested on an RJD ticket after switching loyalties from the JD(U). He won the election with a huge margin of 35,757 votes.

Ravi Jyoti Kumar, who was a member of the JD(U), contested on a Congress ticket, but lost to JD(U)’s Kaushal Kishore in the Rajgir constituency.

Lastly, Rabindra Yadav lost contesting on an LJP ticket after defecting from the BJP Yadav. He was an MLA from the Jhanjha seat, which he has now lost to Damodar Rawat of the JD(U) with a huge margin of 65,210 votes.