RLSP agrees on Kanhaiya Kumar to contest from Begusarai

PATNA: If the indications from the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan camp itself to be believed, former JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar is all set to contest the Begusarai parliamentary seat for which election will be held on April 29.
Expectedly, the RJD camp is tight-lipped as everything about it has to be first decided at the level of its party president Lalu Prasad before his younger son and leader of opposition in the state assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, makes it public.
However, the Mahagathbandhan partners on Monday indicated that Kanhaiya would be the CPI candidate from Begusarai. Late Bhola Singh had won the seat in 2014 on BJP ticket.
Broadly, the Mahagathbandhan is a seven-party formation of RJD, Congress, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular led by former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) led by greenhorn Mukesh Sahani and Samajwadi Party.
“As far as our knowledge is concerned, Kanhaiya would contest the Begusarai parliamentary seat. Congress is agreeable to the idea and other partners should not also have any problem with that,” a source in the RLSP said. “The leaders of RJD, Congress and RLSP would sit together in Delhi on March 13 and 14 to resolve the seat-sharing tangle,” he added.
The perception in the RLSP — for that matter among the Mahagathbandhan partners — is that of the Left parties, CPI(ML) and CPI have been with the combine in action like they held their state-level rallies at Patna in which the representatives of the Grand Alliance (GA) partners were also invited. Therefore, it would be in the fitness of things to “accommodate their demands regarding the seats, but just how many seats they would get is another matter,” and is also subject to discussion.
When contacted, RLSP chief general secretary Satyanand Prasad Dangi said his party’s chief Upendra Kushwaha would leave for Delhi on Tuesday for the seat-sharing talks with Congress and RJD’s chief negotiator Tejashwi. Representatives of other partners in the combine might also join in, if invited.
Incidentally, Kushwaha had joined the Mahagathbandhan through the Congress route after resigning from the Union council of ministers and quitting the NDA. Dangi said the seat-sharing would be finalized before March 18 when the filing of nomination papers begins for the first phase of poll on April 11.
The situation being as it is, Congress and RLSP appeared to be favourably inclined towards Kanhaiya for contesting the Begusarai seat, which implicitly means Lalu and Tejashwi are also of the same view.
It gels with the observation made by the CPI national secretary D Raja on March 8: “Our talks with the RJD is an ongoing process and we will take a call on Kanhaiya once that is finalized.”
In the meantime, state CPI senior functionary Ram Naresh Pandey said Kanhaiya would contest the Begusarai seat.
The odd twist, however, is that although three Left parties — CPI (ML), CPI and CPM — have decided in principle to go to the polls in alliance, the CPM has also been insisting that “alliance or no alliance with the Mahagathbandhan, we will contest the Ujiarpur parliamentary seat”. It, in effect, leaves the Mahagathbandhan free to make seat-sharing arrangements only with the CPI(ML) and CPI.