Patna: Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) today (Dec 7, 2006) wrested the Manihari assembly constituency from the Congress by a margin of over 2,000 votes.

JD-U's Viswanath Singh's victory was seen as the all the sweeter because he defeated Congress' Hamid Mubarak, son of party legislator Mubarak Hussain who passed away two months ago, necessitating the election.

This is a major victory for JD-U as Manihari was a traditional stronghold of the Congress and the party had pulled out all the stops to win it.

Backing the Congress was the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who campaigned for Mubarak, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). The polling was held Dec 4.

Last month, the ruling combine of the JD-U and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the by-elections for the Bhagalpur and Nalanda Lok Sabha seats.