Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar
Two candidates of Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) have won the Rajya Sabha by-polls, armed with support from Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Mr Prasad had yesterday pledged support to the two candidates, signaling a possible realignment in Bihar politics.
"We will support JD(U) nominees in the name of defeating communal forces," the RJD chief announced. Faced with a rebellion by a section of his party's MLAs, Mr Kumar had on Saturday called up Lalu seeking his support in the Rajya Sabha by-polls.
"I am glad that RJD has decided to extend support to both JD(U) candidates and so did CPI. I thank RJD and CPI," Mr Kumar said on Wednesday.
The two JD(U) nominees - diplomat-politician Pawan Varma and Gulam Rasool Balyavi - were up against real estate baron Anil Sharma and former Rajya Sabha MP Sabir Ali, who had entered the fray as independents, and were backed by party rebels and the BJP. JD(U) president Sharad Yadav was earlier elected unopposed.
The by-polls were necessitated by the election of Lok Janshakti (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan, BJP general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy and former RJD general secretary Ram Kripal Yadav to the Lok Sabha.
The JD(U) has 117 MLAs, including the Speaker, the BJP 84, RJD 21, Congress four, CPI one and Independents five. With the arithmetic weighing against ruling JD(U), the support of 21 RJD MLAs was crucial for it in a House of 243, with an effective strength of 232 because of 11 vacancies.
The RJD had recently supported the Jitan Manjhi government during a vote of confidence in the Bihar assembly, but Lalu later declared this was a one-off case. Since then, two out of three RJD MLAs who defected to the JD(U) have been offered ministerial berths, angering the RJD chief.
The BJP legislature party had decided to back the rebels against JD(U)'s MLAs. A section of Lalu's party was also opposed to the idea of doing any business with the ruling party in Bihar.