Ravi Shankar Prasad seeks lawyers’ support

PATNA: With two days remaining for the polling in the Patna Sahib constituency on May 19, the battle for votes has intensified with Union minister and BJP’s nominee for the seat Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday appealing to the lawyers and other professional groups to “spare the next two days for him and the third day for the country by casting their votes for the sake of democracy”.
Ravi Shankar is pitted against Congress’s Shatrughan Sinha, who had won the seat in 2009 and 2014 on BJP ticket. The actor-turned-politician severed his 22-year old association with the BJP last month and joined the Congress. While BJP national president Amit Shah has already conducted a roadshow here in favour of Prasad, Congress president Rahul Gandhi did it on Thursday in support of Sinha.
“The electoral fight for Patna Sahib seat is between hope and opportunism. The voice of the people of Patna will not remain ‘khamosh (silent)’ in the Lok Sabha if I am elected from here,” Ravi Shankar said.
He added that Patna Sahib has become one of the most-talked-about seats in the country after Varanasi where PM Narendra Modi is in the fray.
Prasad, who interacted with the lawyers of the BJP’s legal cell on Thursday, urged them to not only reach the booths in the morning on Sunday, but also hang around there to enthuse and inspire others. “Pahle matdaan, phir jalpaan,” he said.
Sinha said in the last 41 days, he has visited 225 villages and addressed 240 poll meetings, besides conducting roadshows at Fatuha and Bkahtiarpur with deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and others. He said lawyers from Supreme Court, Mumbai, Delhi and Lucknow have already campaigned for him here.