Summary:
Patna, Oct 25 (PTI) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday hit the campaign trail for by-elections to Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan assembly seats which his JD(U) must retain convincingly to arrest its further erosion.
The by-elections to both seats have been necessitated by the deaths of respective JD(U) MLAs.
Tarapur MLA Mewa Lal Chaudhary died in the second wave of COVID 19 while Shashi Bhushan Hazari, who represented reserved Kusheshwar Asthan breathed his last at a Delhi hospital where he was undergoing treatment for Hepatitis.
After the assembly elections last year, Kumar retained the Chief Minister’s post, though his party suffered a major slump and its tally dipped to under 45 seats in the 243-strong assembly.
It also lost the edge to the BJP, its junior ally for many years, which returned with a tally of more than 70, finishing second in terms of the number of seats after RJD.
A major factor that seems to be going in favour of Kumar is that the NDA, of which he is a part, has presented a picture of cohesion, unlike the opposition which seems to be in a divided mess.