Patna: Lalu Prasad Yadav has decided to send RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin’s wife Heena Shahab to Legislative Council.
According to India TV sources, Lalu has given his nod to her name. Besides Heena, the RJD is also likely to send party state unit chief Ramchandra Purve to the upper house of the bicameral legislature.
Sources say that two RJD Ministers in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet are believed to be pushing for Heena’s candidature.
Sources say that Heena will file her nomination papers on May 24.
The RJD is likely to send five candidates to the Legislative Council from its quota.
In 2009 general election, when Mohammad Shahabuddin was in jail serving life-imprisonment for murder, was not allowed to contest the polls. Heena contested from her husband's Siwan (Lok Sabha constituency) as a RJD party candidate, but lost by 63,000 votes to her husband's longtime opponent Om Prakash Yadav.
In 2010, Lalu continued to promote Heena and Sahabuddin in his party. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, she had once again contested from here on RJD ticket but lost.
Recently, the RJD had inducted murder convict Mohammad Shahabuddin in its national executive, inviting sharp criticism from the opposition leaders.
Shahabuddin, a four-time Member of Parliament from Siwan in Bihar and a two-time MLA, has been in jail since 2005 in several cases of murder and kidnapping and was convicted by Siwan court in eight cases and was sentenced to life in two.
