Calculations did not work out: Ex-DGP of Bihar Gupteshwar Pandey on not getting ticket

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According to sources, JD (U) did not press much for swapping Buxar with any other seat from BJP, as it did in the case of Jhajha for former minister Damodar Rawat and gave Jamui to BJP. JD (U) also managed to take Paliganj from BJP to accommodate Jayvardhan Yadav, who had crossed over to JD (U) from RJD.

Sources said neither the JD (U) pressed Pandey’s case much nor the BJP looked too keen to oblige him.

“Unlike another retired DGP (home guards) Sunil Kumar, who got a JD (U) ticket from Bhore, Pandey was perhaps too vocal. His over-enthusiasm to become a popular politician too soon could have marred his chance to contest from Buxar,” said a source in the NDA.

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Sources said Pandey went “overboard” in the Sushant Singh Rajput case and that could have hurt his chances to get a ticket. “No Bihar minister or NDA politician spoke as aggressively in favour of the Bihar government as he did. He was behaving like a politician but it would not have gone too well with the CM,” said a retired IPS officer, recalling how he had cautioned Pandey against taking a VRS in 2009 when he was reportedly eyeing a BJP ticket from Buxar, but did not get it.

Pandey dismissed such theories. “It is true that I had taken VRS to contest polls. Lekin samikaran nahi bana (calculations did not work out). I am a loyal soldier of JD (U). If JD (U) and BJP want me to campaign in this election, I would do so,” he said. The former DGP also defended his stand in the Sushant case. “I have no regrets about the stand I took in the case.”