A day after Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) announced its decision to go it alone in Bihar Assembly polls, its leader and Khagria MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser’s son Yusuf Kaiser joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and is likely to contest on their ticket from the Simri Bakhtiarpur constituency in Saharsa district.
Mr. Kaiser is one of the six members that party has in the Lok Sabha.
The Simri Bakhtiarpur constituency was represented by Mr. Mehboob Kaiser’s father, Choudhary Mohammad Salahiddin, who was with the Congress five times. Mr. Mehboob Kaiser had represented it thrice again on the Congress ticket. He joined the LJP in 2014 after he was denied ticket by the Congress from the Khagaria Lok Sabha seat. He won in 2014 and 2019 general elections from Khagaria.
Sources said Mr. Yusuf Kaiser was not confident of a victory from Simri Bakhtiarpur as a LJP candidate. Since 2010, the JD(U) has won it twice and the RJD won it in 2019 bypolls.
At the LJP Parliamentary Board meeting held on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Mehboob Kaiser backed party president Chirag Paswan’s decision to contest alone but expressed reservations on the decision, sources said.
‘Pressure from constituency’
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Mehboob Kaiser said he had dissuaded his son from joining the RJD and he remained completely committed to the LJP. He son joined the RJD because of pressure from the constituency.
“As far as I am concerned, I am with the party with heart and soul. Whatever inputs I have, may be I don’t have inputs that Chirag ji has, but I see it as an oxymoron to say that we are with the BJP but against the JD(U). Having said that I would say that Chirag ji has taken a well thought-out decision and once it has been taken, I support his and the party’s stand”, he added.
On Sunday, after the meeting of the Parliamentary Board, citing ideological differences with the JD(U), the LJP announced its decision to go it alone in the Assembly elections. The LJP will not contest against the BJP but will fight against the JD(U). The idea is to mop up anti-JD(U) votes and shake off the anti-incumbency against three-term Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The Board voted for supporting a BJP-LJP government sans the JD(U).