Nitish thanks voters of Tarapur for by-poll victory

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday slammed his detractors for taking recourse to ''calculations'' in the recent by-elections which his JD(U), nonetheless, managed to win.

Kumar expressed his sentiments in Tarapur, which was one of the two assembly segments where by-polls were held last month.

Profusely thanking the voters of Tarapur for reposing their faith in the JD(U) candidate Rajiv Kumar Singh, the chief minister took no names but spoke of ''hisab kitab'' (calculations) which were attempted ''to ensure the defeat of the NDA''.

''But all such attempts were foiled by the people of this historic land, which had made notable contributions to the struggle for Independence'', said Kumar.

By-election to Tarapur assembly seats was necessitated by the death of sitting JD(U) MLA Mewa Lal Chaudhary who had succumbed to COVID-19.

The party retained the seat, defeating its nearest RJD rival by a thin margin.

The result belied speculations of a possible defeat for the ruling party which had to surmount a whole lot of caste combinations.

While the RJD had sprung a surprise by fielding a Vaishya, a community traditionally aligned with the NDA, the Congress and Chirag Paswan's faction of the LJP had queered the pitch further by fielding upper caste candidates.

Kumar, who held a public interaction programme in Tarapur evocatively titled ''Jan Samvad'', said, ''I had promised during the elections that I will come back to listen to your problems and come up with solutions. So, here I am.'' Besides Tarapur, the JDU comfortably retained the reserved Kusheshwar Asthan seat which had become a bone of contention for the Congress and the RJD, causing the old allies to part ways.

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