Saffron party's victories a warning for Bihar's grand alliance, BJD in Odisha

The bypoll results on Sunday for two assembly seats in Bihar and one in Odisha set off the “warning beacon” for the governing parties as the opposition BJP won a couple and signalled its closing grip on the two eastern states.

- Manoj Chaurasia & Debabrata Mohapatra

Patna/Bhubaneswar: The seven-party grand alliance in Bihar that was revived this August after the JD (U)-BJP coalition collapsed was expected to perform better. But the alliance’s collective effort failed to stop BJP from defeating RJD’s Mohan Prasad Gupta in Gopalganj—the home district of Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi.

BJP put up a strong fight in Mokama too, where RJD candidate Neelam Devi won by a reduced margin of around 17,000 votes, as opposed to 35,757 votes that separated her husband Anant Singh from his nearest rival in 2020. The former muscleman-legislator Anant Singh is serving a term in jail. “This is a victory for Anant Singh, Neelam Devi and Tejashwi Yadav. There is no role of Nitish Kumar in it,” a supporter said.