Law Kumar Mishra
During the elections, many surprises take place.
The then Prime Minister, Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, who headed the Samajwadi Janta party, was addressing a press conference at the bungalow of his part’s state president Raghunath Jha on Raj Bhawan, a reporter interrupted him and asked-why his cabinet colleagues are deserting him when Lok Sabha elections are approaching.
PM asked, who has left? The Reporter told him that Ms Usha Singh has resigned. Mulayam Singh Yadav too. Prime Minister looked at Raghunath Jha and asked: “Ka ho Raghunath, Ushwa bhi chhod dele biya” ( Raghunath, whether Usha Singh has resigned?)
Jha replied he had heard it on TV news .Yadav, who was also sitting , was noticed because of low height, rose and told PM: “I am with you.”
At Maurya Hotel, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav was addressing a press conference during 2020 assembly elections to release the list of Grand Alliance candidates and manifesto. VIP Chief Mukesh Sahni was sitting next to him.
Tejaswi did not announce Sahni’s name as Deputy Chief Minister candidate. To the shock of Tejashwi and media persons, he left the hall protesting denial of Deputy Chief Ministership.
In a huff, he reached to the BJP office on Gardiner Road, joined the party and announced VIP merger with BJP that obliged him by offering him Simri Bakhtiarpur seat. His party won four seats.
In the 2014 assembly elections, in a surprise action, BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi hired helicopter for Madhepura to bring in Ms Renu Devi, Industries Minister and her husband Vijay Kushwaha ( then both JDU leaders) to Patna. Renu quit the cabinet and joined BJP in the evening.
Two senior Congress leaders, Ramjatan Sinha and Ashok Chaudhury, both presidents of the state unit of Congress deserted the party when election process has started. Sinha joined the BJP, Ashok went to the Congress.
And back to 1977, J P Nadda, President of the world’s biggest political party is distributing tickets to the BJP candidates. In 1977 assembly elections, his father Dr Narayan Lal Nadda , then head of the department of Applied Economics in Patna University had to seek a Janata Party ticket for his junior teacher, Ramakant Pandey from Baniyapur constituency.
Senior Nadda in his Ambassador car (528) went to Gardanibag residence of one of his students with a request to visit the one room house of Lalu Prasad Yadav, a nominee of JP in the election committee. His student who was then reporter with an English daily introduced the senior Nadda to Lalu and asked him to recommend Ramakant Pandey’s name as a candidate.
A copy of his bio-data was handed to Lalu who promised party ticket to him. Jagat Prakash Nadda, then a student, visited Baniyapur to campaign for Pandey ji, who won the seat from the Congress.
