(From left) N.K. Singh and Shivanand Tiwari greet chief minister Nitish Kumar in his chamber. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, March 26: Proving the predictions correct, the three candidates of NDA and two of UPA romped home at the biennial polls in Bihar today.

Those declared elected are Shivanand Tiwary and N.K. Singh of the JD(U), C.P. Thakur of BJP, Prem Chand Gupta of RJD and Shabir Ali of LJP. Tiwary, Singh, Thakur, Gupta and Ali polled 48, 47, 55, 44 and 40 votes, respectively.

The lone Independent nominee, Govind Pandey, secured only one vote,

For the first time since the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP joined hands to vote for a common candidate —Shabir Ali of LJP.

The observers interpreted the development as a signal to the warring Paswan and Lalu Prasad burying their hatchet in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls likely to take place within a year.

Today’s poll was also marked by a rebellion in the Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Defying the party whip, two SP MLAs Deonath Yadav and Gopal Agrawal resigned from the primary membership of the party and voted in favour of the NDA nominees.

Mayavati’s BSP MLAs, however, voted in favour of the UPA nominees, indicating a growing relationship between the railway minister and the UP chief minister ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Eight MLAs in the 243-member House abstained from the voting. They included five from the CPI(ML)-Liberation that had taken a “policy decision” not to participate in the polls. JD(U)’s Chhedi Paswan and Manoranjan Singh Dhumal stayed away from the voting.

While Paswan, admitted in a hospital, used “ailment” as the reason for not turning up, Dhumal, a convict could not make it because he was lodged in a Bengal jail.

RJD’s Ramdas Rai could not make it too because he was not in a state to leave his hospital bed.

JD(U) nominee Ejaj Ali, who had contested as the sixth candidate against the seat vacated by Motiur Rahman because of the latter’s death, was elected unopposed on March 16 itself as he had no one to contest him in the fray.

He has been elected for two years, as Rahman had died two years ahead of the term completion.