Bihar’s Pappu Yadav joins Congress after show of strength in Purnea

PURNEA: Five-time north Bihar MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav on Wednesday joined the Congress and announced the merger of the Jan Adhikar Party that he founded after his expulsion from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in 2014.

Pappu Yadav, the 56-year-old muscleman-turned-politician, said the Congress had always been in his family’s heart and soul. “Rahul Gandhi has won the hearts of the masses,” he said after formally joining the Congress at an event.

On X (formerly Twitter) later, Yadav vowed to stay in the Congress for the rest of his life and work to make Rahul Gandhi the country’s prime minister. “I commit to working for justice for the youth, farmers, women and the deprived sections,” he added.

Pappu Yadav, who was with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD till 2014, called on the RJD founder and his son, Tejashwi Yadav, in Patna on Tuesday before taking the flight to Delhi.

A party leader close to Pappu Yadav said the Congress was going to field Pappu Yadav from the Purnia Lok Sabha seat.

Pappu Yadav has been campaigning for months in Purnea and launched a new campaign, ‘Pranam Purnea’ and a massive rally on March 9. His supporters believe that the show of strength convinced Congress to open its doors to him.

Pappu Yadav and his wife Ranjeet Ranjan, won the Madhepura and Supaul Lok Sabha seats on RJD and Congress tickets, respectively, in 2014. But both of them lost the 2019 elections. Pappu Yadav contested the 2020 assembly election also but came a poor third with just 13% of votes. His wife Ranjeet Ranjan was sent to Rajya Sabha from Chhattisgarh.

A RJD leader said Pappu Yadav had at one point indicated that he wanted to rejoin the RJD but there were far too many sceptics in the party. There was unanimity that his re-entry would lead to chaos and confusion, the leader said, tracing how Pappu Yadav, who was once a don, gained a foothold in politics and won five Lok Sabha elections from Madhepura and Purnea.

To be sure, he started his political journey in 1990 when he won the Singheshwar assembly seat in Madhepura as an independent candidate. Later he won Purnea Lok Sabha seat in 1991, 1996 and 1999. He won the Madhepura seat in 2004 and 2014 on a RJD ticket.

Yadav was an accused in the 1998 murder of CPI (M) firebrand leader and Purnia MLA Ajit Sarkar. In 2009 he was debarred from contesting the polls after being convicted of the murder and remained in jail till 2013 when Patna high court acquitted him.