Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said he was pressured into contesting the by-elections in Bihar against the JD(U) policy of not fighting a bypoll necessitated by incumbent's death.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said he was pressured into contesting the by-elections in Bihar against the JD(U) policy of not fighting a bypoll necessitated by incumbent's death.
The JD(U) lost Jehanabad Assembly seat which fell vacant after the death of Mundrika Yadav. While BJP lost Araria Lok Sabha seat, vacated after the death of RJD's Mohd Taslimuddin, it was able to retain Bhabhua seat that had fallen vacant after the death of Anand Bhushan Pandey.
Speaking to reporters in Patna today, Nitish did not attach much importance to bypoll results.
Kumar, who is the JD(U) national chief, had made a surprise appearance at a press conference convened by state chief Bashishth Narain Singh to announce merger of a breakaway faction of Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) founded by former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi.
"These are elections, they keep on happening. In Bihar,by-election happened. JD(U) doesn't fight elections when the vacancy is due to death of a people's representative. We avoid contesting in such election and we had decided to not contest, but BJP was very persuasive," he said.
"After BJP insisted, the party thought that if we did not contest the elections then the blame would ultimately fall on us. So, knowing what the result was going to be, we accepted the demand to contest the bypolls," the JD(U) chief said.
The JD(U) nominee Abhiram Sharma had lost the Jahanabad assembly bypoll by a margin of over 35,000 votes against RJD's Suday Yadav.
Lalu Prasad's RJD retained the Araria Lok Sabha seat where its nominee Sarfaraz Alam beat BJP's Pradeep Kumar Singh by over 60,000 votes.
To another query, Kumar said he had not given up the demand for grant of special status to Bihar "for even one second" since he first raised the issue 13 years ago.
"I had written to the then prime minister for a special status to Bihar in 2005, shortly after assuming power in the state. A year later, we got a resolution passed in the state assembly to the effect.
"Since then, the demand has been raised by us relentlessly and I have not strayed for even a second. I'm amused to see those who were never concerned about the issue have suddenly started questioning my silence", Kumar told reporters at party headquarters here.
He also indicated that the issue of special status for Bihar would be raised before the 15th Finance Commission.
(With PTI inputs)
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