Patna, Oct 9 (PTI) JD(U) MLA Anant Kumar Singh struck a defiant note on Friday when he maintained that he will “support” a Jan Suraaj Party candidate in the upcoming Bihar Legislative Council polls, pitted against a nominee of his own party.
The don-turned-politician stuck to his stand days after Union minister and former party president Rajiv Ranjan Singh “Lalan” had claimed that the maverick leader had given an assurance that he would “not speak in public” against JD(U) MLC Neeraj Kumar, who seeks a fourth consecutive term from Patna Graduates seat.
Polling will take place on October 23, while votes will be counted four days later.
After a meeting of the NDA legislative party hosted by Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary at his residence, journalists asked the Mokama MLA, who had accompanied Anuj Singh of Jan Suraaj Party during filing of nomination papers, whether he will continue to support the latter.
“Yes, I will,” came the curt reply from the mercurial leader, who has vowed to defeat Neeraj Kumar, whom he accuses of having “worked against me” in the assembly polls held a year ago.
Resolving the crisis in the JD(U), which is contesting four of the eight legislative council seats going to polls, appeared to be high on the agenda of the meeting, after which Choudhary put out a social media post declaring that the “NDA is united” and shared pictures of those who turned up at the brainstorming session.
Among those present at the NDA meeting were members of both Houses of the state legislature, as well as Lalan and JD(U) working president Sanjay Kumar Jha, both of whom are members of Parliament.
Speculations are rife that coming in the way of effective action against a rebellious Anant Singh is the fact that former chief minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) supremo, was no longer in his prime and a battle of supremacy was on between Lalan and Jha.
JD(U) legislative party leader Shrawon Kumar, who is also a state minister, did not respond to pointed queries about Anant Singh but said, “The NDA will contest the legislative council polls as a team, and all those who work against candidates of the coalition will face action”.
Notably, while in the Patna Graduates constituency, the JD(U) faces a revolt from its own MLA, the pitch has been queered for the party by ally Rashtriya Lok Morcha in Saran Teachers, which Afaq Ahmed seeks to retain on a Jan Suraaj Party ticket.
RLM state general secretary Ram Pukar Sinha has filed his nomination papers from the constituency, though JD(U)’s Anand Pushkar is also in the fray.
Barring Snehlata, the wife of RLM’s founding president Upendra Kushwaha, all remaining three MLAs of the party have come out in support of Sinha, in what is being seen as a fresh revolt in the junior NDA partner.
RLM sources admit that ever since Kushwaha’s son Deepak Prakash got inducted into the cabinet, despite not being a member of the legislature, dissatisfaction has grown within the ranks.
Of the eight poll-bound seats of the council, the BJP holds three, while the JD(U), the Congress and the CPI hold one each. All the sitting MLCs are seeking re-election from their respective seats.
Besides Patna Graduates and Saran Teachers, the JD(U) is contesting Darbhanga Teachers, currently held by former state Congress president Madan Mohan Jha, where it has fielded Ghanshaym Rai.
In Tirhut Graduates, which is held by Independent MLC Banshidhar Brijwasi, the JD(U) has fielded its young spokesperson Abhishek Jha, who had unsuccessfully contested the by-poll for the seat held a couple of years ago.
BJP MLCs Nawal Kishore Yadav, Dr NK Yadav and Sarvesh Kumar seek to retain Patna Graduates, Kosi Graduates and Darbhanga Graduates, respectively. Narendra Kumar Singh of the party wants to wrest the Tirhut Teachers constituency, which is held by Sanjay Kumar Singh of the CPI.
The INDIA bloc, of which the CPI is a junior partner, too is beset with infighting, with its two largest constituents, RJD fielding its candidates in all seats except Tirhut Teachers.
The RJD will, thus, be fighting against alliance partners Congress, which is contesting four seats, and CPI(ML) Liberation and CPI(M), both of which have fielded one candidate each.
The less than three-year-old Jan Suraaj Party, led by Prashant Kishor, is fighting all eight seats and hopes to cash in on the disarray in the ruling coalition as well as the main opposition.
Altogether 164 candidates had filed their nomination papers for the eight seats, out of whom 12 were rejected during scrutiny while two others withdrew from the contest. The highest number of 40 candidates are in the fray in Darbhanga Graduates, while Tirhut Teachers has the lowest number of 11 contestants. PTI NAC NN
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