CPI queers pitch for Grand Alliance in Madhubani

PATNA: The state unit of Communist Party of India (CPI) has said it would support rebel Congress candidate Shakeel Ahmad in Madhubani Lok Sabha constituency, a move that may spoil the Grand Alliance (GA) candidate Badri Kumar Purbey’s efforts to wrest the seat from the BJP.
“The trend of voting in the first four phases has made it clear that voters are generally against the BJP.Hence, in order to ensure defeat of BJP, we have decided to extend our support to independent candidate Shakeel Ahmad,” CPI state secretary Satya Narayan Singh said on Wednesday.
The CPI has also decided to extend its support to Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghunath Kumar in Sitamarhi Lok Sabha constituency and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) candidate Mohammad Idris in Muzaffarpur, Singh said.
In Madhubani, the GA has fielded Purbey, a former RJD leader who joined the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) recently. The BJP has fielded its sitting MP Hukumdev Narayan Yadav’s son and former MLA Ashok Yadav from the seat.
The CPI’s decision to support rebel Congress leader in Madhubani is being seen as a rebuke to Lalu Prasad’s RJD, the largest constituent of the GA in Bihar, which had rejected an appeal by CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy to retire its candidate from Begusarai in favour of former JNUSU president and CPI nominee Kanhaiya Kumar.
Madhubani was once a stronghold of the CPI. Late Bhogendra Jha had won the seat five times as CPI candidate and another senior party leader, late Chaturanan Mishra, had contested the seat in 1996. Mishra also served as Union agriculture minister in the United Front government.
Shakeel Ahmad, who won Madhubani seat in 1998 and 2004, was denied ticket by the Congress as the seat went to the kitty of VIP as part of the seat-sharing arrangement among the GA partners. Ahmad had filed his nomination papers in two sets — one as a Congress candidate and another as independent. After the Congress refused him symbol, he withdrew his first set of nomination and decided to contest as independent.