Filing of nomination papers begin, RJD weans away NDA leaders, BJP welcomes back ex-MP
Patna: Filing of nomination papers began in poll-bound Bihar on Friday when the RJD, unfazed by rumours of seat-sharing woes, went on to inflict a blow on the ruling NDA by weaning away at least three prominent figures of the BJP-led coalition.
Smaller partners in the INDIA Bloc, however, seemed to be running out of patience as the CPI(M) announced that it will ask both its
sitting MLAs to file nomination papers next week while awaiting a consensus on another nine that it wanted to fight.
Till now, only the Jan Suraaj Party of former political strategist Prashant Kishor has made public some of its candidates.
On the first day of filing of nominations, for the first phase in which 121 seats go to polls, only two persons, neither associated with a recognised party, turned up to submit papers.
Meanwhile, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav welcomed into his party, Santosh Kushwaha, a two-term former MP, who ended his old association with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).
He was joined, in jumping ship, by Rahul Sharma, a former JD(U) MLA, and Ajay Kushwaha, who
had fought the last Assembly polls as a candidate of the Lok Janshakti Party, then headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan.
The JD(U) reacted to the development by issuing a statement claiming neither Kushwaha, who had won Prunea seat for the party even in 2014, beating the BJP candidate despite “Modi wave”, nor Sharma, whose father Jagdish Sharma had been
an old associate of Nitish Kumar, were “active in the organisation”.
The BJP, which seemed to be intently watching the goings on, vowed to strike back, claiming “half a dozen MLAs of Congress and RJD will be joining us in the next few days”.
State BJP president Dilip Jaiswal made the averment while welcoming back into the party Ajay Nishad,
a former MP from Muzaffarpur who contested last year’s Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate, upon being denied ticket from the constituency he had represented two times in a row.