Patna (PTI): The ruling 'Mahagathbandhan' and the Opposition NDA in Bihar remained evenly poised on Sunday as the RJD and the BJP retained their respective sitting Assembly seats of Mokama and Gopalganj.
The bypolls were the first test of strength since the upheaval in August this year that brought the Mahagathbandhan, helmed by the RJD, to power and ousted the BJP.
The RJD saw its victory margin fall in Mokama. It also fell short of a win in party president Lalu Prasad's home district of Gopalganj, which the BJP retained, albeit by the skin of its teeth. The BJP candidate Kusum Devi polled 70,032 votes, while RJD's Mohan Gupta got 68,243 votes.
BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal, however, quickly came out with a statement hailing the result in Gopalganj as "popular rejection" of the ruling coalition, which now also includes Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U).
Regarding the result in Mokama, Jaiswal said, "We contested for the first time in three decades but our candidate performed better than all previous runners up."
The bypolls were necessitated by disqualification of Mokama MLA Anant Kumar Singh (RJD) and the death of Gopalganj legislator Subhash Singh (BJP). Both seats have been clinched for their respective parties by wives of the previous winners.
Anant Kumar Singh's wife Neelam Devi won Mokama by a comfortable margin of more than 16,000 votes. The spirited fight put up in the seat by the BJP, which fielded a greenhorn Sonam Devi, was backed by both warring factions of late Ram Vilas Paswan's family.
Paswan's brother Pashupati Kumar Paras is already in the NDA and his party's acting president Surajbhan Singh, a former Mokama MLA himself, made possible efforts to corner Anant Singh's wife in the by-elections. Paswan's son, who had grown ambivalent following BJP's alleged indifference towards him, too, campaigned intensively for the saffron party.
In Gopalganj, the RJD lost by less than 2,000 votes.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM and Mayawati's BSP together polled votes ten times the victory margin.
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Dubai, Feb 20 (PTI): A cramping Towhid Hridoy made a courageous maiden ODI hundred but led by five-wicket man Mohammed Shami India managed to keep Bangladesh to an underwhelming 228 in their Champions Trophy opener here on Thursday.
Hridoy (100, 118b, 6x4, 2x6) and an equally gutsy Jaker Ali (68, 114b, 4x4) added 154 for an doughty sixth-wicket stand to drag Bangladesh back from the depth of 35 for five after they elected to bat.
Shami also eased a lot of worries over the absence of injured pace ace Jasprit Bumrah with a five for 53 effort, and during the spell he also became the fastest Indian bowler to reach 200 ODI wickets.
Hridoy's innings was an example of how to construct an innings yet maintain a healthy run-rate as he reached the milestone in just 114 balls.
He and Ali also showed excellent composure under pressure.
However, both the Bangladesh batters benefited from the largesse of Indian fielders, as Ali was dropped on zero off the first ball he faced off left-arm spinner Axar Patel (2/43).
It also robbed Axar of a hat-trick after he dismissed Mushfiqur Rahim and Tanzid Hasan off successive deliveries.
Hridoy had the fortune when he was grassed by Hardik Pandya at mid-off off Kuldeep Yadav when he was on 23.
KL Rahul, who was sharp behind the stumps, floored a stumping chance to give the second reprieve for Hridoy. Indian fielders were also sloppy in the middle passage, allowing the Bangladesh batters to steadily collect singles and twos to ease some pressure.
But those moments of slip-ups should not take anything away from the way Indian bowlers, especially Shami, used the new ball on a rather slow but smooth pitch.
Shami, who had an average outing against England in T20I and ODI series recently at home, did not disappoint on the big stage and took the wicket of opener Soumya Sarkar in the first over itself.
He did not take much time to grab his second wicket when he ousted Mehdy Hasan Miraz — caught brilliantly by Shubman Gill in the slips.
The Bengal pacer later returned to break the determined stand between Hridoy and Ali, dismissing the latter.
He later took two more wickets, and now the 34-year-old is India’s highest wicket taker in ICC tournaments, going past former pacer Zaheer Khan (59).
Harshit Rana (3/31), who was preferred over left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh, gave good backing to his senior partner.