Pappu vows to fight from Purnea, Congress in a fix
The seat has gone to RJD as part of Lok Sabha seat-sharing pact of the Opposition alliance in Bihar also comprising the Congress, a party he had joined a little over a week ago.
Former parliamentarian Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav on Saturday vowed to file his nomination on April 2 for the Purnea Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, which has gone to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) as part of seat-sharing pact of the Opposition alliance also comprising the Congress, a party he had joined a little over a week ago.
“I will file my nomination from Purnea on April 2, come what may,” he told reporters in Purnea, which goes to vote on April 26, in the second phase of parliamentary elections being held across the country in seven phases.
The entry of the five-time former MP is set to make the contest triangular in Purnea, where RJD has fielded Bima Bharti, five-time MLA from Rupauli in Purnea district and a former minister in the Nitish Kumar government, and JD(U)’s sitting MP Santosh Kumar is seeking re-election. In 2019, Kumar had defeated Uday Singh of the Congress by more than 2.63 lakh votes.
Bharti only recently quit JD(U) and joined RJD. She is expected to file her nomination on April 3, a day before the deadline for candidature for seats going to vote in the second phase.
It is not yet clear whether Yadav will contest as an Independent or from the Congress, the party he joined on March 20.
Yadav entered the political arena by winning Singheshwar assembly seat as an Independent candidate in 1990 and later he won Lok Sabha polls from Purnea and Madhepura five times as RJD, SP and Independent candidate. In 2014 LS polls, he lost. He formed Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) in 2015 after quitting RJD.
His wife Ranjeet Ranjan is currently a Congress Rajya Sabha member. In 2019 LS polls, Yadav lost from Madhepura, where he fought as an Independent, while his wife lost in Supaul, where she was in the fray as a Congress candidate. In 2014, she had won from Supaul.
Meanwhile, the Congress was guarded in its reaction to Pappu Yadav’s decision to join the fray.
“The seat-sharing deal among the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) constituents was sealed with the concurrence of the party high command, which has been apprised of the situation. We will do whatever direction comes from them about Pappu Yadav,” said All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Bihar, Mohan Prakash.
Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh and Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan refused to speak on the issue.
Yadav has said his induction into the party was finalized by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
RJD nominee Bharti said Yadav is like her guardian. “We have family relations. Some people are fanning speculations that he (Pappu Yadav) will not support me in the fray,” she told a TV news channel.
A former Congress MLA from Purnea, Amarnath Tiwari, questioned the party’s decision to merge Yadav’s party when he was not to be fielded. “If the party was not sure of getting Purnea seat, why was his party allowed to be merged with Congress,” he said, adding that Yadav came to his home and took his blessings before joining the Congress.
BPCC media department head Rajesh Kumar Rathore said that everyone in the party shoudl respect the seat-sharing deal and follow the coalition dharma. “I am not sure if Pappu Yadav has become a Congress member, even though his party JAP was merged with the grand old party,” said Rathore.
Bihar has a total of 40 Lok Sabha seats. RJD is contesting on 26, Congress on nine, CPI-ML (Liberation) on three and CPI and CPM on one each as part of the Opposition alliance.
In 2019, the BJP-led NDA had swept the polls, winning 39 seats. Kishanganj was won by Congress.
