Rarely have you seen a party celebrating its defeat in the elections but in Bihar, the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief Mukesh Sahani did exactly that today when he distributed sweets among the people and showed victory signs after his party performance in the Bochaha assembly by-polls, considered a very prestigious battle of ballots for both the VIP and the BJP. The RJD won the seat by a huge margin of over 36,000 votes.

The by-elections had become a matter of prestige for the VIP chief after the BJP dismissed him from both the Cabinet and the NDA just after he had fielded his party candidate for this seat. The seat had fallen vacant following the death of VIP legislator Musafir Paswan and hence the VIP being an NDA ally held a legitimate claim over this seat. Instead, the BJP expelled Sahani from both the NDA and the Nitish Kumar cabinet for deciding to contest this seat and even fielded its own candidate Baby Kumari from this seat.

How the prestige of the BJP remained at stake at this seat can be gauged from the fact that the party fielded an army of 40 top leaders to campaign for its candidate. Even the chief minister Nitish Kumar too joined the campaign yet the BJP lost the polls very badly. The only satisfaction for the BJP was that it finished second yet the VIP candidate was not very far behind in matters of votes. While the BJP candidate polled 45,909 votes, VIP nominee Geeta Kumari got around 30,000 votes which sealed the fate of the BJP candidate. The RJD candidate Amar Kumar Paswan, on the other hand, polled 82,547 votes and emerged victorious with a huge margin.

Initially, Sahani had given a ticket to Paswan, son of late party legislator Musafir Paswan, but after serious conflicts in the NDA, he ultimately decided to contest the elections on an RJD ticket and his move proved successful. The number of votes polled by the RJD explains a considerable number of Bhumihar voters supported its candidate, hinting at a new political equation of Bhumihar-Muslim-Yadav (BMY) in the offing.

Although the VIP lost, its performance can’t be ignored. As per reports, the total vote percentage of Malah caste (fishermen) voters was around 12 in Bochacha but the VIP polled more than 18 percent votes which were more than its base votes and that’s why Sahani is very pleased despite losing the polls. Sahani describes three reasons for his happiness. “The first and foremost reason for our happiness is that the VIP has ensured the defeat of the BJP which tried to grab our traditional seat. Secondly, we got more than our base vote of 12 percent and lastly, the masses lent huge support to our party,” the VIP chief said. “We polled around 30,000 votes on our own which is no mean achievement,” he said.

The VIP had fought the last 2020 assembly polls as part of the NDA and won four seats out of 11 it was offered under the seat-sharing deal. Sahani himself lost but was inducted as a minister in the Nitish government and nominated to the Bihar legislative council. The first sign of differences came when Sahani was nominated to the Upper House for a truncated period of 18 months, instead of the full six-year term that he wanted. He fell foul of the BJP after the VIP announced to contest assembly elections in UP and fielded its candidate on 53 seats although he lost all. Eventually, the BJP expelled him from the NDA and the cabinet just after he announced to contest the Bochaha by-polls.