Bihar: Mohd Shahabuddin's wife, son join RJD

Patna: Former RJD MP Mohd Shahabuddin's wife Hina Shahab, who had contested the recent Lok Sabha polls as an Independent candidate from Bihar's Siwan, on Sunday joined the party along with her son Osama Shahab.

Party supremo Lalu Prasad's heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav welcomed them and described Shahabuddin as "a founding member" of the RJD.

Yadav claimed that induction of the late leader’s family members will "help us in our fight against communal forces represented by BJP and RSS".

Both, Hina and her son, joined the RJD at 10 Circular Road, the official residence of former Bihar CM Rabri Devi, in the state capital.

Lalu Prasad, Yadav and several other senior leaders of the party were present on the occasion.

Prasad said, “Late Shahabuddin's family was always part of the RJD. They have come closer and will further strengthen the party." Arguably, the most dreaded gangster-turned-politician of Bihar, Shahabuddin, had remained unbeaten in his stronghold of Siwan until his conviction in a murder case in 2007, which led to his disqualification.

Shahabuddin died in 2021 in Delhi’s Tihar jail where he was serving a life sentence.

Hina unsuccessfully contested the Siwan seat on RJD tickets several times.

She contested elections on an RJD ticket in 2019 for the last time and after that, her relations with the party soured.

It was widely believed that she was being given a wide berth by Yadav who was keen on giving an image makeover to the party which had faced accusations of patronising "bahubalis".

Yadav is understood to have been forced to do a rethink after the recent Lok Sabha polls, in which the RJD performed below par, winning only four seats, despite his spirited campaign that saw the young leader addressing over 200 rallies.

Moreover, in Siwan, Hina finished runner-up, losing to JD(U)'s Vijay Lakshmi Kushwaha by less than one lakh votes, while RJD candidate Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, a former assembly Speaker, finished a distant third, barely avoiding forfeiture of deposit.

The move also underscores RJD's "anxieties", ahead of the Bihar assembly polls due next year, with its junior allies like the Congress and the Left having notched up much better strike rates in the Lok Sabha elections, a political analyst said.

Also, the "MY (Muslim Yadav) combination nurtured by RJD founding president Lalu Prasad" over decades is being aggressively targeted by Prashant Kishor, who has been reaching out to the minority community and highlighting the fact that his Jan Suraaj is the only party to have fielded a candidate from the religious group in the by-polls to four assembly seats due next month.