After losing Darbhanga, Kirti Azad may not get Congress ticket even from Valmikinagar

PATNA: After losing his traditional Darbhanga seat to the RJD in seat-sharing among the Grand Alliance partners, cricketer-turned-politician

Kirti Jha Azad

may not get a Congress ticket even from Valmikinagar.


Sources said, Congress leadership is now considering the name of a BJP MLA who on Tuesday called on a senior Congress leader at the AICC headquarters in Delhi and expressed his desire to desert the saffron party and contest from Valmikinagar if provided the Congress symbol.

Valmikinagar is one of the two seats, out of total nine of Congress quota in Bihar where the party is yet to announce its candidate. The other seat is Patna Sahib from where BJP’s sitting MP and actor-turned-politician

Shatrughan Sinha

is most likely to be fielded after his formal joining in the Congress on April 6.

Azad, a member of the 1983 World Cup winning team, had joined Congress in the presence of its president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on February 18 this year with almost a surety to get the party ticket from Darbhanga. Azad won the Darbhanga seat on BJP symbol three times in 1999, 2009 and 2014.

But on March 29 when the RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav announced seat sharing among the Grand Alliance’ partners, Azad’s dream to contest from Darbhanga was shattered as the seat went in the share of the RJD and former Bihar minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui was declared as RJD candidate from Darbhanga.

After Darbhanga went to the RJD, Congress leadership, sources said, assured Kirti that he might be fielded from Valmikinagar seat that came in the Congress’ share. But Kirti expressed his desire to contest from Madhubani seat (which is allotted to Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP)) and urged the Congress leadership to demand Madhubani from the VIP in exchange of Valmikinagar. The VIP also is yet to announce candidature from Madhubani. However, sources said, the VIP chief Mukesh Sahni has declined to exchange Madhubani with Valmikinagar. The Grand alliance leadership is working to poach a BJP lawmaker to field him from Madhubani.

Sources close to Azad told TOI on Tuesday that he was waiting for the Congress high command’s decision about him. "I will not go against the party’s decision. The party high command is seriously thinking of fielding me from a Lok Sabha seat. Whatever will be the decision I will follow. If I will not get the Congress ticket, I will work as the party’s campaigner," Azad, son of veteran Congress leader and former Bihar CM Bhagwat Jha Azad, told a Darbhanga-based reporter on Tuesday.

Sources close to Azad also said he has still not lost the hope of getting the Congress ticket from Valmikinagar, which is considered as a Brahmin-dominated seat.

But Azad’s dream to contest from Valmikinagar received a major jolt on Tuesday after BJP’s Bagaha MLA and former union

petroleum

secretary Raghaw Sharan Pandey called on a senior Congress leader at the AICC headquarters in Delhi to seek the Congress ticket from Valmikinagar.

Sources in Congress said, Pandey was in touch with Congress leaders for the last 10 to 12 days and he went to the AICC headquarters only after getting a positive signal about the symbol from the Congress leadership.

Contacted over phone, Pandey admitted visiting the AICC headquarters but denied having meeting with any senior leader of Congress there. "I had gone to the AICC headquarters to meet one Pankaj, an employee at Congress office," Pandey told TOI.

Pandey who also served as chief secretary of Nagaland from 2000 to 2004, however, said he was very pained and saddened due to denial of Lok Sabha ticket from the BJP.

"In fact, the BJP has ditched me. I had joined the BJP in February 2014 with an assurance to get ticket for contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Valmikinagar in 2014 general election. But it was not done. They have been giving me assurance for the last five years to allot ticket form Valmikinagar, but this year they gave the seat to JD(U)," Pandey who won the 2015 assembly election as BJP candidate from Bagaha, told TOI.

Bagaha assembly segment falls under the Vamikinagar Lok Sabha constituency, which will see voting in the sixth phase on May 12.

Congress incharge for Bihar, Shaktosinh Gohil on Tuesday told TOI that his party would announce candidates for Valmikinagar and Patna Sahib seats either on April 8 or 9.