Rajasthan bypoll loss no cause for alarm: Nitish Kumar

Patna: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today dismissed suggestions that the recent drubbing of the BJP in Rajasthan bypolls was a cause for “alarm” and expressed confidence that the NDA will emerge successful in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Kumar recalled how in Bihar the JD(U)-BJP combine had fared badly in a bypoll prior to the 2009 parliamentary elections and scored massive victories in both the general elections in the state that year and the 2010 Assembly polls.

“We must be careful while evaluating a political situation through bypoll outcomes. In Bihar, the JD(U)-BJP combine had won 32 out of 40 seats in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. In the Assembly poll the following year, we won more than 200 seats in a House of 243. Though the bypoll held in Bihar prior to that had presented a different picture for us,” Kumar told reporters. The JD(U) national president, who returned to the NDA fold last year, said he had predicted that BJP will retain Gujarat and it did happen though many scoffed at the prediction initially.

“I am hopeful that the BJP-led alliance will emerge successful in the Lok Sabha poll in 2019,” he said.

The Congress recently wrested Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats and Mandalgarh Assembly seat from the BJP by impressive margins, a development many felt showed the ruling party was on a sticky wicket in Rajasthan ahead of the Assembly elections later this year. Kumar was interacting with journalists after his weekly “Lok Samvad”.