Thursday, April 27 2006 14:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: The BJP today (Apr 27, 2006) retained the Patna West assembly seat as its nominee Nitin Navin trounced the RJD-backed Congress candidate Rana Ajay Singh by a margin of over 65,000 votes, in the first by-election held since NDA came to power in Bihar about five months ago.

While Navin got 76,025 votes, his nearest rival Singh could manage just 10,858 and lost his security deposit. It is for the fifth time in a row that the BJP has won the seat.

All the remaining 11 candidates got below two thousand votes. A total of 92,364 votes were polled in the April 24 by-election.

Navin's victory margin could be easily described as massive considering that 19.85 per cent of a little over 5.12 lakh voters exercised their right to franchise in the by-poll.

The election to the seat was necessitated by the death of Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha, BJP MLA and father of Nitin Navin.