The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won all four seats —Belaganj, Imamganj, Tarari and Ramgarh — in the Bihar by-elections billed as the semi-final ahead of the full-fledged Bihar Assembly polls in 2025.

The alliance had just one seat (Belaganj) before the by-elections, while the Opposition had the rest.

The sweep not only reminded that the combination of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU and the BJP was formidable but also indicated that the road ahead for the Opposition INDIA bloc would be tough.

The NDA performance further cemented the position of Nitish as the alliance’s leader in the state and lessened chances of any change. The results redeemed the recent praise showered by Narendra Modi on him at a few public meetings in Bihar.

“The victory of the NDA on all four seats under the charismatic leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar has handed out a clear message that the alliance will achieve the target of winning 225 seats (out of a total 243) in the 2025 Assembly elections,” JDU national spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav left no stone unturned while campaigning for the seats and party president Lalu Prasad had also chipped in, especially in Belaganj.

Though there were no statements from Lalu or Tejashwi over the Bihar results, a senior RJD leader said: “This is a very poor performance. Elections are also about morale and the result will hurt us while infusing fresh enthusiasm in the NDA. Losing Belaganj and Ramgarh is pinching us more. While Belaganj was with us for over 30 years, Ramgarh is the area of RJD state president Jagadanand Singh.”

The results also revealed that poll consultant–turned–politician Prashant Kishor’s newly-formed Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) did not cut much ice with the voters on its debut and has a long way to go to acquire the winning edge. Kishor’s whirlwind campaign on the four seats could do no magic.

However, the JSP managed to lodge itself at the third and fourth positions in all four constituencies and its votes suggested that it will have to stay content with the tag of “vote katwa” (vote splitter) party for the time being. It, however, displaced Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM on a couple of seats.

JDU candidate Manorama Devi clinched the Belaganj seat, ending the three-decade-long domination of the RJD and muscleman-turned-Lok Sabha member Surendra Prasad Yadav on it. The constituency had long been considered an RJD pocket borough.

Manorama got 73,334 votes, beating the nearest rival and Surendra Prasad Yadav’s son Vishwanath Kumar Singh who bagged 51,943 votes. JSP candidate Mohammad Amajad got 17,285, while AIMIM candidate Mohammad Zamin Ali Hassan received 3,533 votes.

The BJP’s Vishal Prashant, the son of former muscleman MLA Rajan Tiwari, won from Tarari, defeating CPIML candidate Raju Yadav by 10,612 votes. The seat had been with the Left for the past 10 years. While Vishal got 78,755 votes, Raju got 68,143. JSP’s Kiran Singh mustered 5,622 votes.

In Ramgarh, BJP candidate Ashok Kumar Singh got 62,257 votes to defeat his nearest rival, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Satish Kumar Singh Yadav who got 60,895 votes. The RJD’s Ajeet Kumar Singh received 35,825 votes while the JSP’s Sushil Kumar Singh got only 6,513 votes.

“We have won the semifinal and we will win the final as well. There is unprecedented support of the people to the NDA government in the state. The people have rejected corrupt parties and those who were behind the ‘jungle raj’ (law of the jungle) in the state,” Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal said.

Union minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi’s daughter-in-law Deepa Manjhi won the Imamganj seat by 5,945 votes. She got 53,435 votes, the RJD’s Raushan Kumar got 47,490 votes, the JSP candidate Jitendra Paswan received 37,103, while AIMIM’s Kanchan Paswan gathered 7,493 votes.