Bihar bypolls: JD(U) inducts Tarapur veteran Shakuni Choudhary’s son to clinch seat

For the Tarapur seat, the ruling Janata Dal (United) has now decided to rope in Rohit Choudhary, an engineer by profession and the eldest son of veteran leader of the area, Shakuni Choudhary, who wields considerable influence among the Kushwahas as well as other communities

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According to political observers in the area, RJD too had set sights on Shakuni, who has had good relations both with Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar in the past. (ANI)

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) on Tuesday inducted a son of a veteran politician who holds considerable sway over Tarapur assembly constituency, where bypoll is scheduled for October 30.

Rohit Chaudhary, whose brother Samrat is with the BJP and a minister, showered praises on the chief minister, JD(U)’s de facto leader, after joining the party at its state headquarters here.

The move is, however, seen as an attempt at “damage control” by assuaging the Chaudhary brothers’ father Shakuni Chaudhary, who had represented Tarapur a record seven times. Despite having announced retirement from active politics, he remains popular in the area.

Chaudhary has represented the seat as an Independent as well as on tickets of the Congress, Samata Party and its later avatar the JD(U), besides the Rashtriya Janata Dal founded and headed by Kumar’s arch rival Lalu Prasad.

During the state elections last year, Chaudhary is said to have lobbied hard with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ensure that one of his sons was fielded from Tarapur. However, as per National Democratic Alliance formula, the seat went to JD(U), which fielded sitting MLA Mewa Lal Chaudhary, who had, notably, wrested the seat from Shakuni Chaudhary himself in 2015.

Mewa Lal retained the seat but died of Covid-19 earlier this year. The party has now fielded Rajiv Kumar Singh, who belongs to the same Koeri caste as the Chaudharys (Shakuni and Mewa Lal).

The assembly segment has a predominance of Yadavs and Koeris and all MLAs here so far have been from either community.

The ruling JD(U) had won the seat last year by defeating the RJD candidate by a margin of around 7,000 seats.

This time, the party is pitted against RJD’s Arun Kumar and Rajesh Mishra of the Congress.

With inputs from agencies