Upendra Kushwaha
Former Union Minister and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party chief Upendra Kushwaha on Wednesday announced that he will be contesting from two constituencies in Bihar his sitting seat of Karakat besides Ujiyarpur where he would be pitted against state BJP chief Nityanand Rai.
Making the announcement at a press conference, Kushwaha insisted that he was not contesting from more than one place out of fear of defeat from his sitting seat but to teach a lesson to both the JD(U) and the BJP which have been jointly conspiring to finish him off politically by destroying his party.
"I will be thrashing a JD(U) candidate in Karakat and trouncing the BJP candidate in Ujiyarpur. That way I would prove my political point", Kushwaha whose party is a part of the opposition Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) and contesting a total of five seats said.
Speculations have been rife that Kushwaha had been skeptical of his victory from his sitting seat which has a sizeable population of the upper castes traditionally supporters of the BJP and its allies.
The RLSP had fought the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as an NDA ally. Ujiyarpur, comparatively, has a larger population of the OBCs especially his Koeri community.
Kushwaha resigned from the Union council of ministers and quit the BJP-led coalition last year after being offered only two seats to contest, though he had three MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
The RLSP chief also announced his candidates for West Champaran and East Champaran seats Brajesh Kumar Kushwaha and Akash Kumar Singh respectively.
The party had earlier announced the candidature of its state president Bhudeo Chaudhary from Jamui (reserved)
constituency.
The candidates for both West Champaran and East Champaran were introduced as educationist, well-respected in the area and the son of senior Congress leader Akhilesh Prasad Singh respectively.
The candidature of Singh, a greenhorn, evoked a barrage of questions from journalists who sought to know when did the Congress leaders son join the RLSP.
They also questioned whether the candidature of the partys national general secretary Madhaw Anand was cancelled in view of a controversy that had arisen in the wake of some dissident leaders alleging that the ticket for the seat had been sold for a huge amount of funds that Anand had gathered for the party through his contacts in the corporate world.
Kushwaha dodged the queries, claiming Singh has been a dedicated member of our party and Madhaw Anand will soon be rewarded for his services rendered to the party. You would not be able to conceive the magnitude of the honour we are going to bestow on him.
Anand, notably, was seated beside Kushwaha while he made the announcements.
The announcements also draw the curtains on prospects of Ram Kumar Sharma, the Sitamarhi MP, who had remained with the RLSP during the tumult it experienced recently on leaving the NDA.
Both RLSP MLAs and its sole MLC have already announced that they would remain with the NDA and seek recognition as an independent group.
The party MP from Jehanabad Arun Kumar had severed his ties with the RLSP long back though his efforts at getting accommodated in the Mahagathbandhan bore no fruit.
