New Delhi: More women emerged winners while the National Democratic Alliance gained five seats more than the Mahagathbandhan in the 39 seats that are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Bihar assembly.
An analysis of the poll results, announced on Tuesday, revealed that women won a higher percentage of reserved seats than in the open ones. While only 26 women were elected as legislators from the 243 seats for which polls were held, giving them a success rate of 10.7%, in the case of the reserved seats, women emerged victorious seven of the 39, with a strike rate of nearly 18%.
Among the reserved seats, two women were elected were from the BJP and the RJD, while one each from the JD(U), Congress and HAM(S).
Of the total 39 reserved seats, 37 are reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates and two for Scheduled Tribe candidates.
Some of the women also won by big margins. They included Bhagirathi Devi of the BJP, who defeated Rajesh Ram of the Congress by 15,796 votes from Ramnagar; Kavita Devi of the BJP who trounced Punam Kumari Paswan of the Congress by 28,943 votes from Korha; Rekha Devi of the RJD who got the better of Altaf Alam of the JD(U) by 11,385 votes from Masaurhi; and Sangita Kumari of the RJD who emerged the winner over Niranjan Ram of the BJP by 12,054 votes from Mohania.
Of the two reserved Scheduled Tribe seats of Manihari and Katoria, one each went to the Congress and the BJP.
In Manihari, Manohar Prasad Singh of Congress defeated Shambhu Kumar Suman of the JD(U) by 21,209 votes. The Katoria seat saw a relatively tougher battle. Here, Nikki Hembrom of the BJP finally got the better of Sweety Sima Hembram of the RJD by 6421 votes.
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NDA won five more reserved seats than Mahagathbandhan
Overall, in all the 39 reserved seats put together, the NDA allies won a total of 22 seats while the Mahagathbandhan partners won 17.
Among the NDA, the BJP won 10 seats, the JD(U) eight, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) three and the Vikassheel Insaan Party one. As this shows, the BJP and JD(U) did well to retain HAM(S) and VIP in the NDA fold, since without them the coalition would have found it difficult to cobble up a majority in the state.
Also, these two smaller alliance partners won half of their seats in the reserved constituencies. While they had four seats each, for HAM(S) three of them were in reserved seats. Its leader and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi was one of the winners. He contested from Imamganj and defeated his nearest rival Uday Narain Choudhary of the RJD by 16,034 votes.
Jitan Ram Manjhi. Photo: PTI
The other two seats won by HAM(S) were Barachatti, where Jyoti Devi defeated Samata Devi of the RJD by 6,318 votes; and Sikandra, where Prafull Kumar Manjhi had a similarly comfortable win by 5,505 votes over Sudhir Kumar of the Congress.
The lone seat won by the VIP was in Bochaha, where its candidate, Musafir Paswan defeated Ramai Ra of the RJD by 11,268 votes.
CPI(ML) Liberation won all its seats by big margins
Incidentally, the role played by these two parties for the NDA was emulated by the CPI(ML) Liberation for the Mahagathbandhan. The party won three reserved seats and came second in two others.
It won all the three seats by very comfortable margins, but the standout performance was of Manoj Manzil in Agiaon. He defeated Prabhunath Prasad of the JD(U) by 48,550 votes. In Darauli, Satyadeo Ram too scored an emphatic win, defeating Ramayan Manjhi of the BJP by 12,119 votes. Likewise, in Phulwari, Gopal Ravidas easily got the better of Arun Manjhi of the JD(U) by 13,857 votes.
While the Congress won five reserved seats, it came second in nine others. This showed that with a little backing or support from its central leaders, most of whom stayed away from campaigning, it could have done a lot better. And, considering that the Mahagathbandhan did not fall too short of the half-way mark, the importance of these nine seats in swinging the election cannot be underestimated.