PATNA: JD(U) national general secretary and former MP Dhananjay Singh on Tuesday said the party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to contest next Lok Sabha election from the high-profile Phulpur constituency.
“JD(U) workers across Uttar Pradesh want Nitish Ji to contest the next parliamentary polls from Phulpur. It will send a good message in favour of opposition unity in UP,” Singh, a former Lok Sabha member from Jaunpur (UP), told reporters in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.
Phulpur is considered as one of the high-profile seats as two former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and V P Singh have been elected from this constituency. The JD(U) leaders are eyeing Phulpur seats also because the leaders of Kurmi (Patel) caste, to which Nitish belongs, have won the seat for a record eight times. Phulpur’s current MP Keshari Devi Patel also is a Kurmi.
Earlier in September last year, almost a month after Nitish dumped the BJP in Bihar and joined hands with Lalu Prassd-led RJD and Congress to form a new government; strong speculations were rife about the Bihar CM eyeing Phulpur seat after JD(U)’s national president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh said that “Nitish has been offered to contest from at least three constituencies in Uttar Pradesh including Phulpur, Mirzapur and Ambedkar Nagar.”
Then, the Samajwadi Party chief and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, while extending his full support to the Bihar CM, had said that Nitish can contest from any seat in UP and he would have the full cooperation of his party. However, Nitish had denied the plan to contest from Phulpur, saying, “I have no personal ambition but to promote young people like RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav in all fields.”
Nitish has not faced any direct election and has been a member of the Bihar legislative council ever since he became the CM in November 2005. The last time he faced direct elections was in 2004 when he contested from two Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and won from Nalanda and lost from Patna district’s Barh seat which he had represented five consecutive times from 1989 to 2004.
