Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh, who returned BJP ticket from Asansol, to contest Lok Sabha polls from Bihar's Karakat
The BJP had initially announced Bhojpuri singer-actor Pawan Singh as its Lok Sabha candidate from Asansol but he expressed his inability to contest the poll.
Weeks after expressing his inability to contest Lok Sabha elections from Asansol on a BJP ticket, Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh on Wednesday announced that he would take the poll plunge as an independent candidate from the Karakat parliamentary constituency in Bihar.
“'Mata Gurutara Bhumeru' means mother is mightier than this land and I had promised my mother that I would contest the elections this time,” Pawan Singh said on X in Hindi.
“I have decided that I will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Karakat, Bihar,” the Bhojpuri star added.
Pawan Singh will be up against Rajaram Singh of CPI(ML) Liberation, which is part of the RJD-led grand alliance in Bihar.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, the largest constituent of the grand alliance, will contest 23 Lok Sabha seats, with the Congress fielding its candidates from nine constituencies, the Left on five seats, and Mukesh Sahni's Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) on three.
BJP had declared Pawan Singh as its nominee for Asansol but he withdrew his name a day after. While he did not specify the reason behind the withdrawal, his candidature had drawn criticism from the TMC, which alleged that some of his songs were crude and depicted women, including those from Bengal, in a vulgar way.
Singh later took a U-turn and said he would fight the Lok Sabha polls to honour the promise he made to his mother. The Bhojpuri singer-actor, at that time, did not say from which constituency or on which party's ticket he would contest the elections.
"I will fight the elections to fulfil the promise I made to my mother, my society and the people," Singh wrote on X.
"I seek blessings and cooperation from everyone," he wrote.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, has replaced Pawan Singh with BJP MP SS Ahluwalia. He would take on TMC's heavyweight candidate and the party's star face, Shatrughan Sinha, in Asansol, an industrial hub encapsulating the state's coal belt.
