Patna,(BiharTimes): Perhaps for the first time since 2005 it was a celebration time in the state office of the Rashtriya Janata Dal as party workers distributed sweets and raised slogans: “Semi-final jeeten hain, Final bhi jeeten gey.” (Have won the semi-final and will win the final too).
After five defeats in the last nine years the 6-4 victory of the RJD in alliance with the Janata Dal (United) and Congress over the BJP-LJP-RLSP combine has given some hope of revival for the party.
Ironically this had happened on the day the party supremo had to be rushed to hospital from New Delhi to Asian Heart Hospital in Mumbai for treatment. Yet he tweated from there hailing the victory.
The state RJD chief Ram Chandra Purvey said that this is the victory of the general people and electorate of Bihar, it is the victory of social justice, democracy, secularism and Mandal forces.
“On this occasion I thank our leader Lalu Prasad Yadav for cobbling up JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance against the communal forces,” he added.
The victory is special for RJD as it won in three out of four seats and lost the Banka seat by just 711 votes. Even in the by-polls held with the Lok Sabha election the party won three out of five seats and that too when it did not contest in alliance with the Janata Dal (United), which then won only one of these seats. The fifth seat went to the BJP.
Political observers are of the view that Lalu’s tenacity to survive, and even stage a fightback––may be minor––after five defeats can not be overlooked. His party lost in the two Assembly elections held in 2005 than the 2009 Lok Sabha poll and again 2010 and 2014 Assembly and parliamentary polls.
Unlike him his Chote Bhai, Nitish Kumar, has to scamper for alliance with RJD just after the defeat in one poll last May.
Incidentally, he went into an alliance with the BJP in 1996 just months after losing the 1995 Assembly election.
In all these election since 2005 the RJD alone always got around 18 to 20 per cent votes, which was only slightly less to Nitish’s Janata Dal (United). It was the vote of the BJP which used to work wonder for Nitish. In 2014 Lok Sabha poll his party could get just 15.8 per cent, much less than RJD. The verdict forced him to go on in alliance with the Bade Bhai.