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Ahead of Bihar poll, Bhojpuri singer-BJP leader Pawan Singh's big announcement
Speculation was rife that Pawan Singh, among other folk artists, was set to contest the upcoming Bihar election.
Bhojpuri singer and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pawan Singh has denied reports that he will be contesting the upcoming assembly election in Bihar. Earlier, speculation was rife that the native of Ara in Bhojpur district was set to enter the poll fray.
“I, Pawan Singh, want to inform my Bhojpuri community that I did not join the party to contest the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections, nor do I intend to contest the assembly elections. I am a true soldier of the party and will remain one,” he wrote in Hindi on X (formerly Twitter).
Singh, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election as an Independent from the Karakat seat, recently met Union home minister Amit Shah and Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) chief and Rajya Sabha member Upendra Kushwaha.
Several folk singers are expected to participate in the upcoming elections.
While Maithili Thakur, popular folk singer from Bihar, has already expressed her willingness to contest the state polls after meeting senior BJP leaders, Jan Suraaj Party has fielded Bhojpuri singer Ritesh Ranjan Pandey as its candidate from Kargahar seat.
Bihar will go to polls in two phases — November 6 and 11. The counting and result declaration is scheduled for November 14. The NDA and INDIA coalition groups are yet to announce the list of candidates and the seat-sharing formula. While BJP's Bihar unit chief Dilip Jaiswal said the party would make the announcements over the weekend, INDIA bloc hasn't yet ended the suspense over seat-sharing.
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 recognized party, turned up to submit papers.
