Setback to VIP as its ‘candidate’ joins RJD

In a setback to Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), its proposed candidate for Bochahan assembly seat bypoll scheduled on April 12, Amar Paswan, son of late Musafir Paswan upon whose death the seat fell vacant last year, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Monday, hours before the VIP was to announce his candidature.

In a setback to Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), its proposed candidate for Bochahan assembly seat bypoll scheduled on April 12, Amar Paswan, son of late Musafir Paswan upon whose death the seat fell vacant last year, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Monday, hours before the VIP was to announce his candidature.

VIP president Mukesh Sahni. (HT Photo)

“Yes, I have joined RJD and will contest the bypoll,” said Paswan.

In 2020 Bihar assembly polls, Bochahan was among the four seats won by VIP, which had fought the elections as part of National Democratic Alliance (NDA), of which Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal (United) are key constituents.

Earlier in the day, Paswan had met RJD’s state president Jagdanand Singh in Patna.

BJP has already announced the candidature of Baby Kumari, who fought from Bochahan in 2015 and defeated nine-term MLA from the seat, Ramai Ram. In 2020, the seat was allocated to VIP as part of deal within the NDA.  

Meanwhile, on Monday evening, Sahni announced the candidature of Geeta Kumari as VIP candidate from Bochahan assembly seat. Kumari is the daughter of RJD leader and former minister Ramai Ram. Both father and daughter joined the VIP.

Sahni, who had antagonised the BJP leadership after his criticism of senior leaders during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls which his party fought on its own, has been on a damage control mission amid apprehensions that the three remaining MLAs of his party may cross over to BJP.

On Sunday, he met chief minister Nitish Kumar and JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, and flew to Delhi the same evening ostensibly to meet senior BJP leaders.

Sahni, who is currently Bihar’s animal husbandry minister, had fought the 2020 assembly elections but lost. However, he was elected as a member of Legislative Council in a bypoll and his term in the state’s upper house is to end in next few months.