Patna, May 3: The day for holding what is being considered Bihar’s “political litmus test” before the Lok Sabha polls has been announced.
The Election Commission today said the byelection to the Maharajganj parliamentary seat would be held on June 2, though the official notification would be issued on May 8. The last date for filing nominations will be May 15 while the results will be declared on June 5.
The seat fell vacant following the death of the RJD’s Umashankar Singh, who was one of four Lok Sabha members of the party.
The byelection will serve as a “barometer” to test the political strength of Bihar’s two political adversaries — chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD boss Lalu Prasad — ahead of the 2014 elections.
The RJD chief is confident his party would retain the seat. “I will ensure that it remains with us,” Lalu Prasad said.
The announcement is going to have an immediate impact on the war of words between the JD (U) and BJP. “One can safely assume that the alliance will stay till the results are announced. The JD(U) would not like to aggravate its strained relationship with its ally and would like to present a united front before the people ahead of the bypoll,” a JD(U) MP said.
Maharajganj is one of the four parliamentary constituencies in Saran commissionerate — a stronghold of the RJD where it won two seats even in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when it was routed across Bihar. It is the stronghold of at least three prominent RJD leaders — Lalu Prasad himself who contests from Chhapra, former MP Prabhunath Singh, who was once close to Nitish and was defeated by a slim margin by the RJD in the last Lok Sabha polls, and Mohammed Shahabuddin, the former MP of Siwan who is in jail for over a decade.
Prabhunath Singh, then contesting as the JD(U) candidate, had lost the seat to the RJD’s Umashankar Singh in 2009. Now, Prabhunath has joined the RJD, which is all set to field him. The JD(U) is likely to pit P.K. Shahi, the state education minister who hails from the Siwan-Maharajganj region.
Given the troubles within in the NDA, observers feel that if the JD (U) loses at Maharajganj, it will have an adverse psychological impact on Nitish and his cadres. If the RJD wins, Lalu Prasad will get the oxygen and energy to carry on through the 2014 elections.
