JD-U Retains Bikramganj Seat
Patna: January 2, 2008
 Voters in Bikramganj in Patna district rejected the caste-based politics of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and elected the Janata Dal (U) candidate Meena Singh over Ashok Kumar Kushwaha by a convincing margin of over 31,000 votes sending a strong message to the Railway Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav that days of divide and rule were pretty much over in the state.
While Kushwaha managed to get 1,34,406 votes, Meena Singh bested him by securing 1,65,664 votes. Bahujan Samaj Party's Baliram Mishra finished a distant third with 39,674 votes while CPI-ML's Arun Kumar Singh received 37,607 votes – both losing their security deposits with the other eight candidates.
The Bikramganj election was necessitated following the premature death of Ajit Kumar Singh, the husband of Meena Singh in a road accident earlier last August.
 As soon as the results were announced by the election officials, a wave of jubilation spread across the JD-U and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) offices in Patna where supporters and party leaders pulled out firecrackers and distributed sweets among each other.
JD-U state president Rajiv Ranjan Singh said he was not surprised by the result.
"All the talk about 'we'll show them who is in control in Bihar' and the 'NDA would bite the dust in Bikramganj' by the RJD leaders, the voters of Bihar once again rejected the caste-based politics of Lalu Prasad and chose development as envisioned by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar," Singh said.
"People of Bihar have spoken again. The time has come for the Railway Minister and his cronies to pack their stuff and just go away from Bihar's political scene. Today it is Bihar, tomorrow we will have them packing from the Center as well," the JD-U leader said.
Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, while congratulating Meena Singh over her victory, said the defeat of the RJD candidate was the defeat of a failed politics and a huge victory for those who sided with progress and development in the state.
"Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders employed all the dirty tricks in the book to win Bikramganj poll but in the end, they failed to fool the voters," Modi said.
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