No place for ex-Union minister R K Singh in Bihar BJP’s campaign, manifesto panels

Assembly elections in Bihar are due this November, and the Model Code of Conduct is likely to come into force in the first week of October.

BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal included most top state-level leaders and the party’s current and former MPs in the campaign committee. The list includes Jaiswal, Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, Health Minister Mangal Pandey, Lok Sabha MPs Giriraj Singh, Ravishankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Nityanand Rai, and Radha Mohan Singh, among others. Former MPs Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Rama Devi were also in the list, as are Rajya Sabha MPs Gopal Narayan Singh, Shambhu Sharan Patel and Dharmshila Gupta.

The 13-member election manifesto committee included Rajya Sabha MP Bhim Singh, Bihar minister Prem Kumar, senior leader Devesh Kumar, BJP national spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan and state party vice president Santosh Pathak. Rituraj Sinha, the BJP’s national secretary and son of former Rajya Sabha MP R K Sinha, is a member of both committees.

However, former Union minister R K Singh, who was an MP from Arrah, has been left out of both committees. Singh had recently asked Samrat Choudhary, Dilip Jaiswal, Mangal Pandey and Sanjay Jaiswal to respond to corruption and other allegations raised against them by Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor.