Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP national president Nitin Nabin got elected to the Rajya Sabha on Monday when the ruling NDA made a clean sweep, clinching all five seats to which biennial polls were held.
Besides Kumar, who heads the JD(U), and Nabin, who is currently a member of the state assembly, the other winning candidates were Union minister Ram Nath Thakur (JDU), who made a hat-trick in the Upper House, the BJP's Shivesh Kumar, whose debut would make up for the party's lack of a Dalit face in Parliament from the state, and Rashtriya Lok Morcha president Upendra Kushwaha, who got elected for a second consecutive term.
Senior JD(U) leader and minister Shrawon Kumar, who had turned up at the assembly premises when the results were announced by Returning Officer Khyati Singh, told PTI Video: "All five candidates have won. Four of them got elected through first preference votes. One was declared the winner, taking into account second preference votes".
The minister, who stood beside MLC Sanjay Kumar alias Gandhi ji, a close aide of the chief minister, who posed before cameras carrying the certificate of the JD(U) president's election, however, did not specify which of the five candidates got elected based on second preference votes.
The JD(U) supremo had filed his nomination papers in a surprise development, stating that it had been his wish to get elected to the Rajya Sabha, having been earlier a member of both houses of the state legislature and the Lok Sabha. The sudden move will necessitate a change of guard after Kumar, the longest-serving chief minister, steps down.
Nabin, who will now have to give up the Bankipur assembly seat, which had elected him for a fifth consecutive term a few months ago, also reached the assembly, flanked by party colleagues and Deputy CMs Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.
Addressing journalists on the occasion, Nabin said, "We owe our victory to the unity that is the hallmark of the NDA. I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving me the opportunity to represent my home state in Parliament".
Altogether six candidates were in the fray for the five seats, necessitating polling for the first time in over a decade in a state where all Rajya Sabha MPs have been elected unopposed since 2014.
RJD candidate Amarendra Dhari Singh, a businessman turned politician, who had hoped to enjoy a second consecutive term, was done in by the inability of the Mahagathbandhan, helmed by the party, to get its act together, squandering the advantage that came in the form of support from five MLAs of AIMIM and one of BSP, though neither party is aligned with the coalition.
Singh needed votes of at least 41 MLAs for a comfortable majority, but at least four, three of the Congress and one of the RJD, failed to turn up on the all-important day of polling.
"We have learnt that our three MLAs have been kept under house arrest since March 13, at the instance of the BJP. We will seek an explanation from the absentees, and action will be taken in accordance with party rules," said state Congress president Rajesh Kumar Ram, visibly unable to come to terms with the embarrassing situation.
The Congress has six MLAs in the 243-strong House. Of them, Manoj Biswas, Surendra Prasad and Manohar Prasad failed to turn up at the assembly to cast their vote.
The party also announced that on Tuesday it will stage a demonstration outside its state headquarters, the historic Sadaqat Ashram, "in protest against the ruling NDA's vote chori".
Faisal Rehman, the lone RJD MLA who remained absent during the polls, told a private news channel: "I am in Delhi, undergoing treatment for a sudden illness. I had spoken to Tejashwi Yadav, the leader of the opposition and our party's national working president, yesterday to inform him about my condition".
Yadav, who turned up at the assembly late in the evening, around the time when counting of votes was complete, told reporters: "But for the betrayal of some of our MLAs, our candidate would have won his Rajya Sabha seat. We will decide later what action should be taken against those who remained absent. But it is yet another example of the misuse of money power and administrative machinery by the BJP which has played such tricks in many states."
However, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha alleged, "The results are a slap in the face of an arrogant Tejashwi Yadav, who had tried to hold his MLAs captive inside a hotel instead of winning them over".
