Patna, Nov 15: As the ruling NDA decimated the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar to retain power, all but one of the 25 state ministers in the fray won their respective seats.
Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, both from the BJP, won Tarapur and Lakhisarai assembly seats.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has been a member of the legislative council (MLC), did not contest the assembly elections.
Altogether 15 ministers from the BJP had contested the polls and emerged victorious.
Agriculture minister Prem Kumar, a BJP veteran, retained Gaya Town for an eighth consecutive term, a record equalled by his JD(U) cabinet colleague Bijendra Yadav (Supaul).
Another minister Raju Kumar Singh, who had been elected from Sahebganj in 2020 on a ticket of Vikassheel Insan Party and later defected to the BJP, retained the seat when he contested the assembly segment on a saffron party’s ticket.
Sanjay Saraogi (Darbhanga) and Nitin Nabin (Bankipur) retained their seats for a fifth consecutive term.
Other BJP ministers, who emerged victorious, were Renu Devi (Bettiah), Nitish Mishra (Jhanjharpur), Neeraj Kumar Singh ‘Bablu’ (Chhatapur), Kedar Prasad Gupta (Kurhani), Jibesh Kumar (Jale), Krishnanandan Paswan (Harsidhi), Vijay Kumar Mandal and Krishna Kumar Mantoo (Amnour) and Sunil Kumar (Bihar Sharif).
However, Sumit Kumar Singh, who had been elected in 2020 as an independent candidate and inducted into the state cabinet, failed to retain the Chakai assembly seat when he sought reelection on a JD(U) ticket.
Singh lost by a margin of nearly 13,000 votes to RJD candidate Savitri Devi, whom he had defeated five years ago from Chakai in Jamui district.
Son of late Narendra Singh, a former state minister and a close aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Sumit had held the Science, Technology and Technical Education portfolio in the outgoing government.
Victorious JD (U) ministers included Sheela Kumari (Phulparas), Leshi Singh (Dhamdaha), Ratnesh Sada (Sonbarsha), Madan Sahni (Bahadurpur), Vijay Kumar Choudhary (Sarairanjan), Jayant Raj (Amarpur), Shrawon Kumar (Nalanda) and Mohd. Zama Khan (Chainpur).(PTI)
