PATNA, Mar 9: Sharp division in votes notwithstanding, two main political rivals, the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samata Party, struck it rich walking away with more than half of the 53 Lok Sabha seats while the other two, the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party, suffered serious electoral reverses in polls in Bihar.RJD, formed in July last year after former chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav forced a split in the Janata Dal, set up candidates at 37 places in alliance with the Congress, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Soren, Rashtriya Janata Party and Samajwadi Janata Party of Chandrashekhar and won 17 seats polling about 27 per cent votes.
The Samata Party fought elections from 21 constituencies in complete understanding with the BJP and emerged victorious in ten. The party secured 16.1 per cent votes.
The undivided Janata Dal during the elections to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996 had won 22 seats by securing 31.88 per cent votes against 33.19 per cent polled by it during 1991. The undivided JD had comeout with flying colours in 31 parliamentary constituencies in 1991.
After the split, the Dal contested elections from 36 seats but won only one though it pocketted about nine per cent votes. The party's senior leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, scraped through in a tough fight from Hajipur. The party had six members in the dissolved Lok Sabha.
The Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav faced a total rout when its lone member in the dissolved house Rajesh Ranja alias Pappu Yadav, was unseated in Purnea.
In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections in the country which saw the installation of the first-ever non-Congress government at the Centre led by Morarji Desai, the Janata Party, formed with the support of the Jansagh and socialist parties had put up candidates in 53 constituencies against the Congress and wrested all by polling 64.88 per cent votes.
The Janata Party candidates had fought the elections on the symbol of the Bharatiya Lok Dal. Marxist coordination committee leader A K Roy had emerged victorious fromDhanbad seat as an independent.
The experiment to bring the socialist forces together first turned into a reality in 1967 which ensured installation of the first non-Congress coalition government led by Mahamaya Prasad Sinha, in Bihar.
The socialists who fought the first parliamentary elections from 47 seats in the state in 1952 had polled 23.68 per cent votes and won three while the Praja Socialist Party and Socialist Party contested 40 and 46 seats in 1957 and won five polling 12.60 per cent vote.
The Congress had registered its victory at 41 places polling 44.46 per cent votes in 1957. In 1965, the Praja Socialist Party and Samajwadi Party floated ``Sanyukta Socialist Party'' and fielded joint candidates against the Congress in 1967 Lok Sabha polls and managed to win eight.
The alliance got 24.75 per cent votes.The Janata Dal, formed after cobbling together several parties in the wake of the Bofors controversy, had its first tryst with the electoral turnstiles in 1989 when the party along with theBJP and Left parties contested the elections on a common agenda.
Though the JD and its allies tried to put up a united fight against the Congress, friendly contests were witnessed in many of the 54 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state.Still the Dal, which fielded its nominees in 37 constituencies pulled off a remarkable performance winning 32 seats polling 36.4 per cent votes.
In the ensuing state assembly elections, the party set up candidates for 275 of the 324 seats and won 121 of them polling 25.37 per cent votes, registering a sharp decline in terms of percentage of votes polled by its candidates.
After a keen contest for the post of the leader of the JD legislature party, Laloo Prasad Yadav, hitherto considered a light-weight in the state politics, was catapulted to power.
And from then on he not only dominated his party but also the state politics till the split in the Dal in 1997.
In the 1991 polls, Yadav's rustic charm coupled with a groundswell of support for his party for championingthe cause of `mandal', the Dal and its allies, CPI, CPI-M and the JMM-Soren together secured 46 of the 51 Lok Sabha seats elections for which were held in the state while the BJP pocketed only five and Congress had to remain content with only one.
Consolidation of anti-Laloo forces coupled with a virtual split in the Janata Dal's much-publicised `my-Muslim Yadavas' votes dealt a severe blow to the `messiah' of the social-justice Laloo Yadav, with BJP-Samata Party combine unseating the Dal and its Left allies, the CPI and the CPI-M, in 16 seats in the 1996 general elections.
BJP and its electoral ally, Samata Party, had won 22 seat while the Dal emerged victorious at 22 places and the CPI bagged four seats.
