A prominent builder, a renowned filmmaker and a controversial strongman with criminal past figure in the Bihar ruling party Janata Dal-(United)’s final list of party candidates for the upcoming lok Sabha polls. Party president Sharad Yadav released the list for all the remaining 32 lok Sabha seats in the State.
The JD(U) has decided to field prominent builder Anil Sharma, promoter of Amrapali group, from Jehanabad, renowned filmmaker Prakash Jha from Bettiah and controversial strongman with criminal past Manoranjan Singh ‘Dhumal’ from Maharajganj lok Sabha constituencies.
Party president Sharad Yadav, as expected would be contesting from Madhepura Parliamentary constituency taking on heavyweight RJD candidate Pappu Yadav.
Construction builder Anil Sharma, who recently joined the party, is a prominent builder and hotelier and has constructed several big apartments in Noida and other places considered hot properties. He belongs to Munger district of Bihar.
The party denied ticket to sitting Jehanabad MP Jagdish Sharma who is convicted in multi-million fodder scam case and was sent to jail in connection with the case. According to new law he is barred from contesting the poll so the party replaced him with Anil Sharma. Though, Jagdish Sharma, said sources, wanted ticket for his MlA son Rahul Sharma.
Earlier, the JD(U) had declared names of candidates for eight lok Sabha seats and announced that it would release the remaining names for the 32 seats before Holi, festival of colour.
“We’d announced that we would declare names of all candidates before Holi so we’ve done it,” said Sharad Yadav.
When asked about the name of a controversial strongman with criminal past Manoranjan Singh ‘Dhumal’ in the party list, Sharad Yadav said, “he might have some cases against him but yes he has strongman figure…you know that constituency is known for bahubalis”.
The party has also fielded other sitting parliamentarians like Ram Sunder Das from Hajipur, Arjun Rai from Sitamarhi, Dinesh Chandra Yadav from Khagaria, Ranjan Prasad Yadav from Patliputra, and Meena Singh from Ara constituencies.
A party turncoat Sanjay Jha who earlier was in the BJP but later joined the JD(U) after becoming a close aide of Nitish Kumar, too has been given party ticket from Darbhanga lok Sabha constituency from where he would taking on BJP’s Kirti Jha ‘Azad’ and RJD’s Ali Ashgar Fatmi.
The JD(U) leadership also decided to field some new entrants too in the lok Sabha arena. It has given tickets to Abu Kaiser from Bhagalpur, Akhtarul Iman from Kishanganj, KP Ramaiah from Sasaram, Avnish Singh from Motihari, Anil Kumar from Gopalganj, Baidyanath Mahto from Bagaha, Bijendra Chaudhury from Muzaffarpur, Manoj Kumar Singh from Siwan and Santosh Kushwaha from Purnea.
Renowned filmmaker Prakash Jha who after his defeat in last lok Sabha poll had declared that he would not contest elections anymore, has been nominated from Bettiah constituency where he would contesting against BJP candidate Sanjay Agrawal.
Party leader who earlier had parted ways from Nitish Kumar Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias lallan Singh too has been given ticket from Munger lok Sabha constituency.