Ahmedabad : At a time when Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi are at loggerheads over the prime ministership issue, the BJP has registered a consolidated win in the Gujarat by-polls, whereas at the same time, the ruling Janata Dal (United) in Bihar has lost the Maharajganj constituency to the RJD.

JD(U)’s defeat is not only a victorious moment for RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is desperately trying hard to revive his party’s fortune, but ruling party’s loss also gives state BJP an upper hand, which has not been on good terms with JD(U) over the issue of projecting Narendra Modi as NDA’s PM candidate for 2014 General Elections.

The win is expected to be viewed as a moral boost by the pro-Modi camp and may use this opportunity to hit back at Nitish Kumar, who has repeatedly threatened to pull out of NDA if Modi is projected as NDA’s PM candidate.

Meanwhile, in Gujarat, the BJP on Wednesday won the Porbandar, Banaskantha Lok Sabha seats, where by-elections were held on Sunday. The ruling party also emerged victorious in three out of four Assembly seats.

“BJP candidates have won in two Lok Sabha seats of Banaskantha and Porbandar and three Assembly seats of Limbadi, Morva Hadaf and Jetpur,” a state election official said.

The result of Dhoraji Assembly seat is yet to be announced, however, the trends indicated that BJP was leading in this particular seat as well.

Interestingly, all the six seats had earlier been held by Congress candidates.

Both the main political parties in the state, ruling BJP and opposition Congress have earlier expressed confidence of winning majority of seats even though this bye-elections did not enthuse the voters much.

RJD wins Maharajganj by-poll

In a big jolt to Nitish Kumar, JD (U) candidate PK Shahi today faced defeat at the hands of opposition RJD candidate Prabhunath Singh as votes were counted for the by-election to the Maharajganj Lok Sabha seat.

The RJD won Maharajganj Lok Sabha bypoll defeating the JD-U candidate by more than 1.36 lakh votes after the end of the 14th round of counting.

Congress nominee Jitendra Swami is still much behind.

After the 11th round, RJD’s Prabhunath Singh had polled 2,34,651 votes, JD(U)’s P K Shahi bagged 1,56,400 votes and Congress’ Jitendra Swami managed only 22,160 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Umashankar Singh, an RJD MP and father of Congress candidate Jitendra Swami.

Meanwhile, grabbing the opportunity to hit Nitish Kumar, RJD leader Lalu Prasad said ‘the misrule’ of JD(U) has led to ruling party’s defeat.

“It will not be a defeat of Shahi but a defeat of Nitish Kumar in Maharajganj,” Lalu said.

The JD-U was backed by the BJP, while the Lalu Prasad-led RJD had the support of the Lok Janshakti Party. The Congress had fielded Jitendra Swami.