'Lalu, Nitish happiness over bypoll win will be short-lived'

Patna, Aug 29: With a buoyant RJD, JD(U) and Congress planning to take their "secular alliance experiment" outside Bihar after the bypoll victory, LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan today said their happiness would be "short-lived" as they won by "fluke".

Paswan, however, admitted that the performance of NDA in the bypoll was due to some "shortcomings" including delay in selection of candidates. "The victory of RJD, JD(U) and Congress alliance in Bihar bypoll is by fluke...this experiment has no future within the state as well outside in the future," Union Minister Paswan told PTI. "What are they celebrating? BJP won maximum four seats as compared to RJD 3, JD(U) 2 and Congress 1," the LJP chief said.

"Its like three failed students asking their teacher to add 20 marks to each of them and make them pass them with first division (60 per cent)," he said taking a jibe at Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar.

"Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party President Mayawati are not greedy and unprincipled politicians like Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar," he said dismissing any chance of union between the two forces in Uttar Pradesh. On the performance of the NDA in the bypoll, he said, "We delayed in the selection of candidates and could not make people aware of the development works carried on by the NDA government at the Centre in a short spell of time."

The secular alliance won six out of the 10 seats for which by-election were held in Bihar. LJP, which had contested only Parbatta seat in the bypoll, lost by the highest margin of over 55,000 votes. Besides, the victory margin of BJP candidate in Hajipur, the Lok Sabha constituency of Paswan, came down to over 6000 from over 15,000 it had in 2010 Assembly election.

Citing the example of 2009 bypoll in the state in which LJP, RJD and Congress had won 15 out of 18 seats but lost badly in the Assembly poll in 2010, Paswan said like this RJD, JD(U) and Congress would meet the same fate in the hands of NDA in the Assembly poll next year.

PTI