In this Bihar seat, Independents overshadow NDA’s contest with India

Pappu Yadav represented the seat thrice in the 1990s and won by a huge margin.

Purnea:

The staunch Indian bloc’s challenge to the staunch NDA may be the highlight of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, but in one seat in Bihar, the narrative is already centered on independent candidates.

Purnea, located in the northeastern corner of the state, is named after the region of the same name and is known to literature buffs as the place where Phanishwar Nath Renu lived and where Raj Ka Famous characters like Hiraman, played by Raj Kapoor in Teesri Kasam, were brought to life on the big screen. ‘.

In the race for 2024, this place is in the spotlight mainly because of Rajesh Ranjan aka Pappu Yadav who, as per some polls, could be in 6 He became a dark horse when the votes were counted on May 4th.

While the NDA candidate is a JD(U) MP, who is aiming for a hat-trick, the Indian bloc has also thrown its weight behind Bima Bharti, who recently quit Bihar Chief Minister Nitish K. Mal (Nitish Kumar) party and was immediately rewarded by the Lord Chancellor. – RJD ticket holder Lalu Prasad.

Yadav represented the seat three times in the 1990s and won by a huge margin, twice as an Independent and once as the Samajwadi Party, the party in Uttar Pradesh. A major force but never became a significant player in Bihar.

Yadav, who is married to Congress MP Ranjit Ranjan, recently merged his Jan Adhikar Party with the great old party, but the latter refused to let him Leave the seat on your own behalf.

Yadav’s call for a “friendly fight” with his autocratic ally RJD did not resonate with the Congress leadership despite his talk of “fighting for Rahul Gandhi as prime minister”.

Yadav, an optics guru who filed his nomination papers as an independent, created a stir with a motorcycle parade that was said to have irked both the NDA and the Indian Group.

The Congress has so far not taken disciplinary action against Yadav, but any top leader’s refusal to publicly support him is seen as an indirect snub.

Moreover, in Bhagalpur, where Rahul Gandhi has addressed the only election rally in Bihar so far, Bharti was invited and named as the “Indian candidate”, dispelling any doubts about the Congress party’s bid for Pur any doubts about the position of the Inner Asian seats.

Locals believe that Yadav’s vigorous ‘Pranam Purnea’ campaign over the past year has helped him win new popularity in the area, where the sitting MP has to contend with the sitting MPs. The transfer of votes from the BJP is crucial for any JD(U) candidate, but in the absence of Nitish Kumar Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Purnea ) was speaking in the context of the rally, and this was not taken for granted at all.

Yadav, meanwhile, has been putting his sly charm to good use, breaking bread with common people and often crying while recounting the “humiliation” he faced for refusing party tickets.

He traveled all over Punea, happily lending the sight of his fat body on a motorcycle to photographers.

Yadav boasts support from all sections of society and has been claiming that he will upend the upper-caste base of the BJP and the “Muslim-Yadav” coalition.

As expected, the RJD brass saw the fight as a matter of its own prestige and decided not to leave the matter to Bhatti. Bhatti, who has represented the Rupaoli Assembly seat five times, belongs to the Gangota caste which has considerable influence in the area.

Party supremo Tejashwi Yadav, who accompanied Bharti as she filed her nomination papers, has stepped up his campaign ahead of the April 26 polls, holding rallies in Purnaia almost every other day .

Unlike elsewhere where the main target was the NDA, his speech in Purnea was aimed at Pappu Yadav, whom he has been calling a “BJP agent”, who is fighting the 2020 assembly elections with borrowed resources from the saffron party.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)