That’s why Rajya Sabha elections raised political temperature

Kumar Bhevesh Chandra

Political temperature of Bihar, heading towards assembly polls, has gone up due to Rajya Sabha elections. For four seats of Rajya Sabha the alliances have been shaken.

Lets first talk about the ruling party. The Rajya Sabha elections are due on five seats. If the present equations are seen the ruling party shall get three seats of which two seats are being claimed by JDU and third seat is being considered secure for BJP. The JDU has secured a seat for Harivansh and on the other Ram Nath Thakur shall be sent for a second time.

Ram Nath Thakur is the son of Bihar’s former chief minister Karpuri Thakur. With two seats JDU has solved the forward / backward equation but for the BJP just one seat is increasing trouble. The contenders for this seat are four. They were Vivek Thakur son of Dr CP Thakur, and Rituraj son of RK Singh.

It was tought for the BJP to choose from among the two. Vivek Thakur comes from the Bhumihaar community of Bihar and Rituraj from the Kayasth community. Caste politics has troubled the BJP. The Bhumihaar community is happy with the ticket being given to Vivek Thakur but the Kayasthas are upset with the BJP.

Though central minister Ravi Shankar Prasad comes from this community and has gone to the centre after winning election from Patna in Bihar. But the Kayastha community has connected the denial of ticket with their pride.

The Akhil Bhartiya Kayastha Mahasabha has termed BJP as anti-Kayastha. It has also decided to call a mega convention on the issue. In the opposition too the ticket distribution has created upheavals.

From the two seats in JDU’s account the Congress wanted one seat. But the party ignored Congress’ demand and secured both tickets for the industrialists. The RJD has given its first ticket to its old MP Prem Gupta. He is from Haryana and has been a minister.

The second name for the Rajya Sabha ticket is a surprising one. He is Amrendra dhari Singh. The name is new for workers and leaders of the RJD. He is a big businessman and apart from real estate he is in to fertilizer, chemical imports.

Obviously he has a big property but he has been away from politics still at the age of 55 years. The names are not being opposed by anyone in the party but the Congress has issues and that shall surface in near future.

Tajaswi is understanding this political issue and he is saying we shall walk ahead together and create a new Bihar. But in the Congress’ camp there is depression over the decision and this anger is also with the Loktantrik Janata Dal where supporters of Sharad Yadav are angry over it.

Supporters of Sharad Yadav say they were promised one seat but this promise has been broken. The party workers say they shall reply during the coming assembly elections. And they shall make their own candidates contest elections. This situation is not challenging for the RJD but reduce winning ability.

Same speculations is for the Congress. It is said that RJD broke its promise for Kanahaiya Kumar and in the elections the Congress might damage RJD via Kanahaiya Kumar.

(writer is senior journalist. Views in the article are personal)