Ramai dares RJD to field him from unreserved seat

MUZAFFARPUR

: Former minister and Dalit leader Ramai Ram on Wednesday dared RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav to allot him any unreserved constituency in the state to contest this Lok Sabha election.

Ramai was reacting to a recent statement in which Yadav had asked the ticket aspirants from the Dalit castes to contest election from unreserved constituencies. He had recently tried to meet Lalu at RIMS in Ranchi where the RJD president is undergoing treatment in judicial custody after his conviction in fodder scam cases.

Ramai, a former ministerial colleague of CM Nitish Kumar and Lalu, said let Tejashwi field him on RJD ticket from Muzaffarpur, a general constituency, and he will win. “People from this area have been pressurising me to contest either from Muzaffarpur or Hajipur. I have made up my mind to contest from these two seats even as an independent candidate,” he said.

Talking to this correspondent at his Muzaffarpur residence, Ramai said former JD(U) president Sharad Yadav should not have joined hands with RJD as it would prove fatal for him. “I firmly stood by his side when he had been kicked out from JD(U). But, he betrayed me and his other supporters after merging his party with RJD,” said the nine times MLA from Bochaha.

Recalling his contest with LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, Ramai said he had lost by a margin of 22,000 votes in 2004 Lok Sabha election from Hajipur. “I have a big vote bank in Hajipur. And I have proved it in my last election from that constituency,” he said.

Launching a scathing attack on Lalu and Nitish, he said both were portraying themselves as well-wishers of the Dalit (downtrodden) community. “But, they did nothing for us during their regime spread over three decades. They have only divided our community on cast and creed basis,” he alleged.