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BJP dumps Shatrughan Sinha, names Ravi Shankar Prasad as candidate from Patna Sahib in Bihar

News Nation Bureau New Delhi Updated on: 23 Mar 2019, 11:59 AM

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday named Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as its candidate from disgruntled parliamentarian Shatrughan Sinha's  Patna Sahib constituency in Bihar. Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is currently the Rajya Sabha MP of the BJP, may face Sinha as the latter is likely to join the Congress, according to reports. Last week, he had also indicated that an announcement on which of the opposition parties he will be joining was likely soon.

The decision to dump Sinha, the sitting MP from Patna Sahib constituency, was taken in a meeting which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and the party’s Bihar unit chief Nityanand Rai.

Announcing the names of NDA candidates in Bihar, BJP general secretary Bhupender Yadav said that the candidates were finalised jointly by BJP president Amit Shah, JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan.

Last week, Sinha had hinted that he would not be working under Narendra Modi anymore, tweeting an Urdu verse that implied the Prime Minister may not have dearth of admirers but the dissident BJP leader would not be one of them.

Associated with the BJP since the 1990s, Sinha fell out with the party's leadership in the recent past, complaining it has become a "one-man show and two-man army"-- a reference apparently to the Prime Minister and his trusted aide and party president Amit Shah.

Sinha has repeatedly asserted he would seek re-election from the Patna Sahib seat even though it may be as a candidate of a different party. He had served as a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and is serving his second consecutive term as a Lok Sabha MP from Patna Sahib.

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First Published : 23 Mar 2019, 11:31 AM

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