Pappu Yadav To File Nomination From Purnia Despite RJD Declaring Candidate There, Urges Lalu Yadav To Leave Seat For Congress

Pappu Yadav, who recently joined the Congress, declared his plans to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Bihar's Purnia, despite the Congress ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) having already declared its candidate for the same constituency.

He also urged the "elder brother of INDI Alliance in Bihar", RJD's chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to reconsider the Purnia seat in the interest of the alliance and leave it for Congress.

Bima Bharti is the RJD candidate from Purnia. She has been elected as an MLA from Rupauli in Purnia district on a Janata Dal (United) thrice since 2010. However, she recently joined RJD.

Pappu Yadav said that he would file his nomination papers in the presence of the public on 4 April. He also said that he has conveyed his intentions to Congress leadership and is waiting for their blessings before filing the nomination.

This comes a few days after the announcement that the RJD will contest 26 of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats, with the nine seats left for Congress and five seats for Left parties.

The Congress was given seats of Katihar, Kishanganj, Patna Sahib, Sasaram, Bhagalpur, West Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur and Maharajganj seats.

With Purnia missing from this list, Pappu Yadav faced a setback as he was all set to contest the Lok Sabha elections from here on a Congress ticket after he merged his Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) into Congress.

Interestingly, Pappu Yadav was expelled from the RJD in May 2015 for anti-party activities. He then contested against the Nitish-Lalu alliance in the 2015 Assembly elections under JAP.

In the 2020 Assembly elections, Pappu Yadav joined the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) of the Azad Samaj Party and Bahujan Samaj Party and contested 148 seats.

It got a vote share of 1.03 per cent, which was even less than the 2015 elections when it contested 109 seats and got a vote share of 1.35 per cent. Thus, without a future, it was best to merge the party.

Pappu Yadav has been elected a member of Lok Sabha multiple times from several constituencies of Bihar on different party symbols. However, for quite some time, he has been focusing on Purnia.