Respect people's mandate: Nitish Kumar

Faced with a severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he accepted the verdict.
"I respect the mandate of the people," he said in a terse statement issued by the Chief Minister Office here.
Kumar remained at his official residence at One Anne Marg here throughout the day, watching poll results on TV.
Sources in the CMO said state JD(U) president Basistha Narayan Singh and senior minister Vijay Chaudhary visited him during the day.
Kumar, they said, might interact with the media on the poll outcome tomorrow.
The poll results have been shocking for Kumar and his party, indicating he blundered by severing ties with BJP which has swept the polls in the state.

His party JD(U) has won only the Purnea seat and was leading in his home turf Nalanda. Even JD(U) President Sharad Yadav is trailing behind RJD's Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav.

Compared to this, in 2009, NDA, which was led by Kumar in the state, had won 32 seats and JD(U) had won 20 seats out of 25 it contested.
JD(U) this time contested 38 of the 40 seats and conceded only two seats to ally CPI.
A buoyant BJP has demanded Kumar to resign on moral grounds like his Assam counterpart Tarun Gogoi.