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Patna,(BiharTimes): The denial of another term to the oldest BJP leader of Bihar and chairman of the Legislative Council, Tarakant Jha, came as a huge surprise.
Jha has been associated with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the earlier version of the BJP, since its foundation in Oct 1951. Many of the party leaders of today’s Bihar were not even born then. |
Yet the central election committee decided to deny another term not only to him but to another senior sitting MLC, Baleshwar Bharti, as well. Only the deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has been given another term.
Though Jha put up a brave front before the media and said that he, in the past, never approached the party to make him MLC yet people close to him are upset as to why he was kept in the dark.
A senior lawyer of the Patna High Court, Jha had served as the party president between 1990 and 1992. He was the member of the Council for two terms.
Some senior BJP leaders are now talking about the generational change and want to enlist fresh blood.
The denial of term obviously means that there soon would be a new chairman of the Legislative Council.
The BJP’s state vice-president, Lal Babu Prasad, and the state office-bearers Mangal Pandey and Satyendra Kushwaha are the other three party candidates.
The central leadership has reportedly denied ticket on the principle that no leader would be sent to Rajya Sabha or state legislative councils more than twice. But Jha’s supporters argue that the party has bent the rule more than once.
Even recently the party gave Rajya Sabha nomination to Ravi Shankar Prasad, Arun Jaitley and Najma Heptulla for the third time. In Bihar, Ganga Prasad has been a BJP MLC for the past 16 years.
Some BJP leaders blame Sushil Modi for the exclusion of Jha. They recalled that when the fodder scam surfaced in 1996, there was a bitter fight between them as Jha represented some of the accused in the scam in the court stressing that it was his professional obligation. Jha was expelled from the BJP at the behest of Modi, they alleged.
Though he was later taken back in the party fold and made the Chairman of the Upper House, the relationship between the two was not very cordial.
Eleven seats of Bihar Legislative Council would be vacant on May 11. The tenure of chief minister Nitish Kumar and Modi would also end that day.
The JD(U) has decided to re-nominate all its six candidates. The RJD will field former chief minister Rabri Devi for the one seat it can win with its strength in the Assembly.
The last date for filing nomination is April 16 and the last date for withdrawing nomination papers is April 19. If there are more than 11 candidates in the contest, elections will be held on April 26.
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