NDA candidates sweep Bihar by-polls; BJP bags 2 seats, JD(U) and HAM win 1-1 seat

In the Bihar bypolls held on Saturday, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured victories in all four contested assembly segments. The NDA retained the Imamganj seat and won three other seats—Tarari, Ramgarh, and Belaganj—from the opposition. This outcome strengthens the political position of the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)] ahead of the 2025 Bihar assembly elections.

The biggest result came in Belaganj, where JD(U)’s Manorama Devi defeated the RJD’s Vishwanath Kumar Singh by a margin of more than 21,000 votes. The Belaganj seat had been a stronghold for the RJD since its inception in the 1990s. Vishwanath Kumar Singh, contesting his first election after his father Surendra Prasad Yadav’s election to the Lok Sabha, was unable to maintain the seat for the RJD. In the 2020 assembly elections, the seat was won by Surendra Prasad Yadav, who vacated it after his win in the Lok Sabha polls.

In the other contested constituencies, NDA’s candidates emerged victorious in Tarari and Ramgarh. In Tarari, the JD(U) candidate defeated the RJD’s contestant, while in Ramgarh, another JD(U) candidate claimed victory. In all four segments, the NDA’s candidates were seen to have received significant support, particularly from voters loyal to the JD(U) and its allies.

Prashant Kishor’s newly formed party, Jan Suraaj, had a disappointing performance. Despite Kishor’s claims that the party would bring a political revolution in Bihar, Jan Suraaj candidates failed to win any seats and lost their deposits in all but one constituency. Kishor’s party had hoped to make an impact in the bypolls but struggled to gain traction in the face of the dominant political presence of the NDA and RJD in these regions.