Lacking star players, Congress struggles to find candidates in Bihar

The first vote in the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar will be cast in a fortnight, yet the Congress, bereft of its star players like Shatrughan Sinha, Kirti Azad, Meira Kumar and Nikhil Kumar, all former MPs, is struggling to find suitable candidates for the seats allocated to it.

The grand old party has been allotted nine seats out of the 40 constituencies in the state. Its ally RJD will contest 26, thereby leaving the remaining five seats for the Left parties: CPI-ML, CPI and the CPM.

Adding to the party's woes, Congress star campaigner and one of the finest orators in state politics Kanhaiya Kumar is not in the fray, thanks to Lalu Prasad’s indifferent approach towards the former JNU student leader.

Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad, the two BJP MPs from Bihar who crossed over to the Congress during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, have both joined the Trinamool Congress and are contesting from Asansol and Durgapur (both in West Bengal) respectively as Mamata’s nominees. With Shatru’s departure to the neighbouring State, the Congress has not been able to find a suitable replacement for the Patna Saheb seat, from where he won twice in 2009 and 2014, and lost once in 2019.

Further, the RJD has given a raw deal to the Congress. It wanted to field Kanhaiya Kumar from Begusarai and Pappu Yadav from Purnea. Both of them were strong contenders but were systematically sidelined by the RJD chief Lalu Prasad who gave Begusarai seat to the CPI, while retaining Purnea for the RJD. No amount of request from Pappu to Lalu Prasad could alter the situation. Notably, Pappu has won Lok Sabha elections from Bihar five times. Kanhaiya made his poll debut against Union Minister Giriraj Singh in 2019 from Begusarai.

THREE NAMES FINALISED

Of all the nine seats allotted to it, the grand old party has so far been able to announce candidates for only three seats: Kishanganj (Md Javed), Katihar (Tariq Anwar) and Bhagalpur (Ajeet Sharma). Finding a suitable candidate for the remaining constituencies has become a herculean task.

"Former Kerala Governor Nikhil Kumar wanted to contest from Aurangabad but the RJD gave the ticket to its candidate, thereby leaving the IPS officer-turned-politician high and dry. Sasaram was allotted to Congress, but Meira Kumar expressed her inability to contest from her fiefdom. Shatrughan and Kirti have already quit Congress and joined Trinamool,” explained a senior Congress functionary, dwelling at length about the delay in declaring candidates.

"At some place like Samastipur, we have a few names doing the rounds. One is former DGP of Tamil Nadu BK Ravi and the other is Sunny Hazari, son of Maheshwar Hazari, who is a minister in the Nitish Cabinet. Similarly, in Muzaffarpur, the Congress had almost decided to field its MLA Vijyendra Choudhary (who has won from Muzaffarpur Assembly four times) but he seems to be ceding ground to a turncoat Ajay Nishad, the sitting BJP MP from Muzaffarpur. A few days back, Nishad has crossed over from the BJP to Congress and may be fielded from Muzaffarpur, from where his father and former Union minister Capt Jainarain Nishad too had won five times,” averred the senior Congress legislator, hoping the trouble with selecting candidates will be sorted out soon.

Bihar goes to polls in seven phases and the first-phase voting will be held on April 19. 

(The write is a Patna-based journalist)