Patna,(BiharTimes): More than the defeat of Congress party candidate in Harlakhi Assembly by-election it is the absence of chief minister Nitish Kumar from the campaign, which made a big news.

Though RJD chief Lalu Prasad, state Congress president and education minister Ashok Chaudhary and 18 of his party MLAs did campaign in the by-election the RLSP candidate, Sudhanshu Shekar, won by a much bigger margin than his father, Basant Kushwaha. He won by more than 18,650 votes than his father who just scrap through by 3,892 votes.

Apparently, there is nothing in the victory as the RLSP has just retained its seat. Only the margin has increased by over five times. No doubt the sympathy factor worked, and more in this case as the late legislator died just hours before taking oath.

Much can not be read in the by-election results. Even RJD’s Prabhunath Singh won by a huge margin of over 1,35,000 votes in Maharaj Lok Sabha by election in 2013 even though Narendra Modi wave had started sweeping the country. In 2009 the RJD had just scrapped through this seat by less than 3,000 votes.

The same Prabhunath lost in 2014 Lok Sabha election from the same seat.

So what is being debated more is why Nitish kept himself away from the campaign, when Lalu Prasad went to campaign?

Analysts are of the view that Nitish did not want to antagonise Koeri votebank, which in general threw its lot behind the grand alliance candidates during the last year Assembly election.

“So it was in the fitness of the thing to let young Sudhanshu win as his father died without stepping into the Bihar Assembly,” commented a Bihar watcher.

A stiff opposition to him by Nitish would have sent a wrong signal to the Kushwaha caste, which is so dear to him not only in Bihar but also Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.