Patna: The message from the Jokihat Assembly bypoll, in which the RJD's Shahnawaz Alam knocked out the JDU's Murshid Alam by over 41,000 votes on Thursday, is loud and clear - Bihar's minorities no longer trust chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The result does not merely show the wresting of a seat from the JDU by the RJD; a senior leader of Nitish's JDU mourned that no ruling party had been defeated by such a big margin.

It is the same seat, which has a 70 per cent Muslim population, that Nitish won with the BJP in 2005 and 2010, and with the RJD in 2015. Thursday's rout came despite Nitish campaigning in Jokihat and stressing that he would not compromise with communalism and rattling out steps he had taken for the minorities.

Officially, the JDU seemed to point at big brother ally BJP. "There is a need for the BJP to make the alliance more cohesive and engage with allies," PTI quoted JDU spokesperson K.C. Tyagi as saying. There are concerns over issues involving Dalits and farmers besides petroleum price rise, he said, adding that the BJP needs to address them. These "may be issues of perception" but they needed to be addressed, Tyagi said.

However, Nitish's credibility has not tanked with the minorities only because of his tie-up with the BJP. The way the communal flare-ups after Ram Navami in March and April this year were handled has unnerved the minority community. Nitish's repeated statements - that he did not allow communal violence to erupt - cut little ice.

Leader of opposition Tejashwi Yadav seemed to hit the proverbial nail on the head when he had declared that it took less than 2 seconds for his father Lalu Prasad to decide to arrest a man like L.K. Advani while Nitish dragged his feet in the arrest of Arjit Shashwat - son of Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey - who was charged with fanning communal tension in Bhagalpur.

The appointment of K.S. Dwivedi - whose role as SP in the infamous Bhagalpur riots has been questioned - appears to have also added to the alienation of the minorities from Nitish. The home department's plea that Dwivedi had been let off in the enquiry did not convince the Muslims.

The Jokihat defeat is also a warning about party functioning for the JDU. Even after two months of the Araria Lok Sabha bypoll, in which the RJD's Sarfaraz Alam won after vacating the Jokihat Assembly seat as a JDU MLA, the party could not find a suitable candidate. The announcement of Murshid Alam - charged in criminal cases - shocked even NDA leaders.

"We had Manjar Alam who has defeated Sarfaraz twice from Jokihat asking for a ticket, but for some strange reason his plea was not considered. Nitish ji is relying too much on leaders like RCP Sinha, Lalan Singh and Ashok Choudhary. We needed a strong local leader," rued a JDU leader asserting that the party could have put up a better fight and would not have faced such a humiliating defeat.

The other message from Jokihat is that Tejashwi has stepped into his father's shoes and is now accepted as an alternative to the NDA by leaders of his own party and the allies. His political stature has increased. But there is a warning for him also not to go overboard. Jokihat was a citadel for the late Md Taslimuddin, one of the tallest Muslim leaders of Seemanchal.

"Not all constituencies in Bihar will have a 70 per cent Muslim presence and a legacy of a leader to aid the party," conceded an RJD leader.