Kurhani assembly by-poll: GA names ex-JD(U) MLA as joint candidate, BJP yet to decide

The seat fell vacant after its sitting RJD MLA Anil Kumar Sahni was convicted in a case of forging leave travel allowance by a Delhi court in August this year.

The ruling mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) in Bihar Saturday announced to field former Janata Dal-United legislator and former minister Manoj Kushwaha as its joint candidate for the December 5 bypoll for Kurhani assembly seat in Muzaffarpur district, which fell vacant after its sitting RJD MLA Anil Kumar Sahni was convicted in a case of forging leave travel allowance by a Delhi court in August this year.

The Grand Alliance press conference in Patna on Saturday. (Santosh Kumar?HT)

The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to announce its candidate.

This is the first time that chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JD-U is contesting an assembly bypoll after the formation of the GA government comprising seven parties in August this year.

“We are thankful to the RJD and all other constituents of the GA for allotting the seat to the JD-U nominee. We will win the seat,” said JD-U national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh at a press conference in Patna, where Kushwaha’s name was announced in the presence of RJD’s national secretary general Abdul Bari Siddiqui, state Congress president Madan Mohan Jha, minister Santosh Suman and several leaders of Left parties.

In the past, Kushwaha has won Kurhani seat thrice — in February and November in 2005, and in 2010.

In the recently concluded bypolls in Mokama and Gopalganj, there was close contest between the ruling alliance and the opposition BJP. While RJD retained Mokama, BJP retained Gopalganj.

Kurhani has a sizeable number of Kushwaha, Vaishya, Yadav and Muslim voters, along with Nishads, making it difficult to predict, especially since the contest is likely to be triangular with former minister Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party( VIP) apparently keen to field its candidate.

In the 2020 assembly polls, RJD’s Anil Kumar Sahni had defeated BJP’s former MLA Kedar Prasad Gupta by a slender margin of 712 votes.

in the 2015 assembly polls, Gupta had won the Kurhani seat by a margin of 11,570 votes .

The nomination process for the Kurhani bypoll has started from November 10 and will end on November 17. The last date of withdrawal of nomination is November 21. The counting of votes will be held on December 8.