Asked about the BJP’s (and its allies) claim of winning more than 400 seats in Lok Sabha, Sinha took a jibe at the ruling party and said, “They have been very, very considerate and moderate in their claims. They could have easily claimed that they will win 550 seats, seven seats from Pak-occupied Kashmir or whatever is that number, and the rest in the rest of the country.””There is no end to making such claims. I’d only like to remind you that whenever elections have taken place, I remember in my state of Jharkhand, the claim was, ‘Ab ki Baar 65 paar’ – 65 in a House of 81 or 82.“How much did they get? 25. So, you apply the same arithmetic, and BJP does not cross 200 in this Lok Sabha election,” he said.Sinha also said that the INDIA bloc is being underestimated and that opposition parties, including the Congress, will improve its tally in the polls.”It (INDIA bloc) consists of a large number of regional parties that are very strong in their own states, and they will do much better. The Congress party will also do much better than they did in the last election. So, they are giving the ruling party a run for their money,” he said.On Nitish Kumar and his party JD(U)’s switch to the NDA, Sinha said the Bihar chief minister has lost his credibility.”He is already known as a ‘palturam’ (for frequently changing his alliances), and he has lost his credibility now completely. BJP has lost its credibility, and the results of this Lok Sabha election will show that people were not at all impressed by the crossover that Nitish Kumar has done.”Sinha said did not want to return to active politics due to his health. “There was a lot of pressure on me this time from the people in my former constituency, Hazaribagh, to contest the elections. They said, ‘I’ll win, hands down, sitting at home.’””But I did not take the bait, because I knew that despite their assurances, I’ll still have to work hard and my health will not permit me to undertake such hard work of contesting a Lok Sabha election. So, I am now leading a largely retired life,” he said.Sinha represented Hazaribagh constituency in Lok Sabha between 1998-99 and 2009-2014. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, his son Jayant Sinha, who still continues to be in the BJP, fought and won from the seat. He was reelected from Hazaribagh in 2019.This time, Hazaribagh Sadar MLA Manish Jaiswal was picked by the party to contest the Lok Sabha elections.



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