CPI(ML) Reciprocates RJDs Gesture; Gives up Misa Bharti’s Pataliputra

Patna: The CPI(Ml) Liberation on Friday announced that it would not field its candidate from Pataliputra Lok Sabha seat, from where Lalu Prasads eldest daughter Misa Bharti is in the fray, as a gesture of reciprocation to the RJD which has left out Ara in favour of the ultra-Left party.

In a statement issued here, the party's state secretary Kunal, however, made it clear that it would be fielding its candidates from Siwan, Karakat and Jehanabad and support the CPI and CPI(M) in Begusarai and Ujiarpur where candidates of the Mahagathbandhan of which the RJD is the largest constituent are in the fray.

The CPI(ML) has already announced candidature of Raju Yadav, a former state president of AISA, from Ara formerly a hotbed of the naxal movement and candidates for the remaining three seats would be announced at the party's state-level convention on April 02, Kunal added.

In Siwan, the CPI(ML) has for long been engaged in an ideological and political battle with the RJD which intensified in the wake of the murder of former JNU students union president Chandrashekhar allegedly by goons of local MP Mohd Shahabuddin.

The RJD has fielded Hina Shahab, wife of Shahabuddin who is in jail, from Siwan.

The Karakat seat has gone to former Union minister Upendra Kushwahas RLSP. It is Kushwahas sitting seat, carved out of naxal infested regions of central Bihar districts like Aurangabad and Rohtas.

Jehanabad, yet another naxal hotbed which used to be in headlines in the 1990s for massacres by outlawed ultra-Left outfits and private militias seeking to wipe these out, has RJD strongman Surendra Yadav in the fray.

Former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar is the CPI candidate in Begusarai where the RJD has fielded Tanveer Hasan while Ajay Kumar is the CPI(M) nominee in Ujiarpur the sitting seat of state BJP president Nityanand Rai which has fallen into the RLSPs kitty though the candidate for the same is yet to be announced.\

Till about a year ago, the Mahagathbandhan which then comprised only the RJD, the Congress and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhis HAM was thinking in terms of an electoral understanding with the Left parties.

This, however, did not materialize as the bloated formation which now comprises half a dozen parties including late entrants like RLSP, HAM and LJD, was not left with enough seats to spare for the Left after accommodating all allies.