Kurhani bypoll discussed at BJP meet

Patna: The state BJP and the seven-party grand alliance appear to be playing cat and mouse game as to their respective candidate selection for the byelection to the Kurhani assembly seat in Muzaffarpur district to be held on December 5.
As far as the state BJP is concerned, its core committee meeting was held in Delhi on Friday on the issues involved.BJP general secretary in-charge of Bihar affairs Vinod Tawde also participated in it and is scheduled to visit the state next week.
“Tawde Ji will reach Patna on November 15 and will stay for two days in the state. The details of his programme are being worked out,” state BJP chief spokesman and former MLA Rajiv Ranjan said. During his three-day visit last month, Tawde had held interactive session with the party's office-bearers, besides holding a meeting with the core committee members.
However, as at present, the state BJP is engaged in the candidate selection for the Kurhani assembly seat, where the party's former MLA Kedar Prasad Gupta had lost to RJD's Anil Sahani by a small margin in the 2020 elections. The byelection has been necessitated due to the disqualification of Sahani following his conviction in a travelling and lodging scam case when he was the JD(U) Rajya Sabha member. As to the byelection, the decision is yet to be taken by RJD and JD(U) as to which of the two will field its candidate. The filing of nomination papers began on Thursday and the last day for it is November 17.
“Our party (BJP) did well in the Gopalganj and Mokama byelections. We retained the former and increased our vote share massively in Mokama,” state BJP spokesman Prem Ranjan Patel said, adding that “our strategy is to win the Kurhani seat by increasing our vote share”.
The BJP's core committee meeting held in Delhi on Friday is learnt to have had discussions on three main points -- voting behaviour in Gopalganj and Mokama, political situation facing the grand alliance in the backdrop of the coming Kurhani bypoll and the BJP's own possible candidate for it.
From the point of view of BJP, the relatively strong communities are of the Vaishya (trading class), Nishads (caste of fishermen), and also Kushwahas.
It is learnt that BJP will shortlist three candidates, one each from the aforesaid three castes, including last time loser Kedar Prasad Gupta, and finally announce its candidate from among them, taking into account his winnability factor against the grand alliance.