By PTI
PATNA: All three candidates of the RJD on Monday filed their nomination papers for elections to the legislative council in Bihar in presence of the party’s founding president Lalu Prasad and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav.
The party has fielded Munni Rajak, Abdul Qari Suhaib, and Ashok Kumar Pandey, for elections to seven seats of the legislative council.
The three RJD nominees have been associated with the party for some time but are making their electoral debut now.
The selection of the candidates, a Dalit woman, a Brahmin, and a Muslim, is aimed at refuting allegations of excessive patronage to Yadavs, the caste to which the RJD founder belongs.
Nonetheless, the RJD has ended up ruffling feathers in the Grand Alliance it helms by “unilaterally” announcing candidates, without taking its Left allies into confidence.
The largest ally, CPI-ML, had also shot off a letter to Yadav, the leader of the opposition, last week, reminding him of a “promise” he had made in past of helping the party get a seat in the Upper House.
The Congress, an estranged ally of the RJD, had tried to fish in troubled waters by pointing out that its 19 MLAs, combined with 12 of the CPI-ML, could help the ultra-Left party bag one seat.
The assembly is 243-strong and a candidate must have more than 30 votes for an assured victory.
However, it appears that the RJD has been able to pacify the Left which enthusiastically took part in a function here on Sunday, organised by the RJD, to mark the anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan’s “sampoorn kranti” (total revolution) call of 1974.
Among those who had addressed the gathering, where Tejashwi Yadav came out with a “report card” of NDA’s alleged misrule, were D Raja and Dipankar Bhattacharya, secretaries general of CPI and CPI-ML respectively.
Lalu Prasad, who could not turn up because of ill-health, had come out with a video message lauding the alliance partners for their fight against “communal forces” represented by the BJP which he charged with “driving the country in the direction of a civil war”.
Meanwhile, the BJP and its ally, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), are yet finalise their candidates for the remaining four seats.
According to NDA sources, the BJP in view of its numerical superiority in the assembly wants the lion’s share but JD(U) is insistent upon a “50-50 formula”.
The process of filing of nominations for the biennial polls comes to a close on Thursday, June 9.
