Patna, March 26 :Three candidates of Bihar's ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and two of the opposition United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha Wednesday.
The NDA candidates who have made it to the Rajya Sabha are former health minister C.P. Thakur, former state minister Shivanand Tiwari and former bureaucrat N.K. Singh, official sources said here.
Opposition candidates who won were Premchand Gupta of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Sabir Ali of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).
A contest was necessitated in the elections to five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar because of the presence of an Independent candidate, Govind Pandey, who fetched a single vote.
According to official sources, Thakur of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got 55 votes, followed by Shivanand Tiwari, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) national spokesman, who got 48 votes, and the JD-U's Singh got 47 votes. Gupta of RJD got 44 votes, while the LJP's Ali got 40 votes.
The five-member Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) boycotted the poll, accusing both the ruling and opposition alliances of being "anti-poor and anti-people".
JD-U legislators Manoranjan Singh alias Dhumal Singh, who is lodged in a West Bengal jail, and Chhedi Paswan, admitted to a Delhi hospital following an accident, did not vote. Ramdas Rai of the RJD also did not turn up.
The ruling NDA garnered 150 votes, six more than their strength despite two of its legislators remaining absent. The NDA was compensated for by two Samajwadi Party legislators, who voted for the alliance candidates. The JD-U has 89 legislators, while the BJP has 55.
The opposition UPA secured 84 votes, seven more than their collective strength of 77, including those of their Left allies in the house of 243.
The biennial Rajya Sabha elections for 56 seats were conducted in 17 states.