Patna: Bihar chief minister and ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar will not be contesting the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar this time; instead, he will lead the poll campaign of the Grand Secular Alliance. This is the third time that Kumar has opted out of the race.
“I will not be contesting the assembly elections since I would be in the charge of the election campaign [for the Grand Secular Alliance]”, Kumar told media in the Bihar assembly premises on Monday. The weeklong monsoon session of the state legislature began on the same day.
Kumar, who is a member of the Bihar Legislative Council or Upper House of the state legislature, has not contested assembly elections since he became the chief minister of Bihar in November 2005. He had last contested an election in 2004 when he was elected a member of the Lok Sabha from his home constituency of Nalanda. Since then, he hasn’t faced voters directly, choosing instead to enter the house through what his detractors allege “backdoor”.
Likewise, Kumar’s predecessor Rabri Devi, wife of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav, has also announced that she won’t be contesting the assembly elections. Instead, she will be campaigning for her two sons, Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav, who are to make their maiden entry into politics this time.
“Rather than focusing on my own elections, I will campaign for my sons in the elections this time,” the former chief minister told the media on Monday. She is currently a member of the Upper House of Bihar legislature. In the 2010 assembly elections, she had contested for two seats: Raghopur seat, in Vaishali district, and Sonepur seat, in Saran. Saran was the Lok Sabha constituency of her husband and RJD chief Yadav, but she lost both. Subsequently, she was nominated to the Bihar Legislative Council.
