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Bihar election results: Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv, trailing in Bankipur, launches a tweet attack at BJP

Bankipur, one of the six assembly segments of the Patna Sahib parliamentary seat, had twice elected Shatrughan Sinha in 2009 and 2014. But this was when Sinha was in the BJP.

Updated on: Nov 10, 2020, 13:52:54 IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
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Congress candidate Luv Sinha, son of party leader Shatrughan Sinha, is trailing Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Nitin Nabin from Bankipur seat, as per Election Commission trends from Bihar vote count on Tuesday.

Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha with his son and Congress candidate from Bankipur constituency Luv Sinha. (PTI File Photo)
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha with his son and Congress candidate from Bankipur constituency Luv Sinha. (PTI File Photo)

He accused the NDA, who the grand alliance of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress is aiming to defeat, of resorting to dishonest means to win the election.

“If the N.D.A can’t win by honest means, then they have no shame in doing whatever it takes to form the government. An old strategy that has become their only strategy,” Sinha said on Twitter.

He was responding to a tweet from his father who posted a video from the RJD’s official handle where the party claimed the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) fraud in Arrah constituency. “One has to be careful & watch! I’m offering no comments at the moment. Forwarding as received for your perusal, action, response, information & broadcasting. Jai Bihar! Jai Hind!” Shatrughan Sinha said in the tweet accompanying the video.

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Meanwhile, three-time BJP MLA Nabin has been winning from Bankipur since 2005.

Bankipur, one of the six assembly segments of the Patna Sahib parliamentary seat, had twice elected Shatrughan Sinha in 2009 and 2014. But this was when Sinha, also called Shotgun for his piercing comments, was in the BJP.

Full Coverage: Bihar Assembly election

The link of Nabin’s family to the constituency go back 25 years when his father, a senior BJP leader in Bihar, was elected from the Patna West seat in 1995.

The constituency, located in the heart of Bihar capital Patna was named Bankipur after the delimitation of constituencies in 2008.

Luv Sinha started trailing soon after counting started. In the early trends, the grand alliance was leading but the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) soon caught up and is now hovering around the halfway mark.

Shatrughan Sinha, who had launched his political career with the BJP in the early nineties when he contested the by-elections from New Delhi seat against actor-politician Rajesh Khanna of the Congress, had crossed over to the Congress when the BJP refused to give the party’s in-house critic a ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Sinha suffered a humiliating defeat, getting just 33% of the popular vote against law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who received 62 per cent of the votes polled.

The counting of votes polled in Bihar Assembly elections is being done at 55 centres across 38 districts of the state.

On one side is the NDA which includes Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), BJP, Vikassheel Insaan Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha.

On the other hand is the challenger grand alliance, formed by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and three other Left parties.

While Nitish Kumar is the face of the NDA, the grand alliance has chosen Tejashwi Yadav as its chief minister candidate.