By polls sweep boost to Narendra Modi, blow to Nitish Kumar

AHMEDABAD/PATNA: In a major boost to Narendra Modi in the party's prime ministerial race, the BJP on Wednesday swept the six bye elections to Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in Gujarat while his detractor Nitish Kumar suffered a blow in Bihar and Congress drew a blank in four states.

Wresting all the six seats from Congress in Gujarat, the BJP won the Lok Sabha bye elections in Porbandar and Banaskantha with a margin of over 1.28 lakh and 71,000 votes respectively and bagged the Assembly seats of Limbadi, Morva Hadaf, Jetpur and Doraji by handsome margins.

Interestingly, the BJP candidate Vithhal Radadia, who defected from Congress after a controversy last year when he brandished a gun at a toll booth, won the Porbandar Lok Sabha seat. Banaskantha went to Haribhai Chaudhry of BJP.

The bye election results came as a boost to Modi in the race for prime ministership in BJP, whose National Executive will be meeting in Goa this weekend when he may be made the head of the party's campaign committee for the next year's Lok Sabha polls.

The defeat of ruling JD(U) in Bihar was a major victory for RJD chief Lalu Prasad, whose party won the Lok Sabha bye election from Maharajganj with a margin of over 1.37 lakh votes.