Nitish magic works in Bihar

Nitish Kumar’s magic worked in Bihar. Nitish-led JD(U)-BJP alliance NDA got an overwhelming majority in Bihar Assembly election bagging 206 of the 243-Assembly seats after the day-long votes counting ended on November 24, 2010.

JD(U) on its own bagged 115 seats, while its electoral ally BJP snapped up 91 of the 141 and 102 seats, they contested respectively.

The NDA partners improved their performance considerably compared to the last elections in 2005, when they together won 143 seats.

The RJD-LJP alliance steered by Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan, suffered a major setback bagging just 25 with RJD (22 ) and LJP (3). They together had 64 seats -- RJD (54) and LJP (10) last time.

Jubilant JD(U) and BJP workers took out processions to celebrate historic win in Patna on November 24, 2010. They put "abir" and "gulal" (dry colours) on each other faces and distributed sweets to mark the occasion.

Photo: Aftab Alam Siddiqui