Patna : Never in the previous elections, such largescale charges of money being taken for issuing of assembly tickets were made in Bihar, as is being done for the October-November assembly polls. And, the worst of the charges are against Lok Janshakti party president Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag Paswan. Both face charges of accepting crores for a ticket.
All other parties, including the RJD, JDU and the RLSP too are facing similar charges, but on a lesser scale.
Even as the distribution of tickets for the first two phases is nearing completion, three senior LJP functionaries came on record to accuse Paswan and his son, Chirag, who is chairman of the party”s parliamentary board of giving tickets to only those who paid crores to them. Party MP from Vaishali, Rama Singh, who is also vice-president of LJP, alleged that Paswan was accepting Rs 5 crore for each of the tickets and declared he would campaign in all the 40 constitutencies where LJP was fielding its candidates. He predicted rout of the LJP in the polls.
Another party general secretary and former MLA Ramnaresh Singh at a press conference on Monday alleged that he was denied ticket from Nalanda because he did not pay Rs 5 crore as demanded by Paswan.
Paswan”s son-in-law Anil Kumar Sadhu married to Paswan”s daughter from his fist wife who stays in their village in Khagaia district went to the extent of asking the Election Commission to probe the charges of crores being exchanged by aspirants and Paswan for tickets and raid Paswan”s houses at Patna. He too said he alongwith his wife (Paswan’s daughter) would campaign in the constitutencies where LJP candidates were in the fray. He alleged even in the Vidhan Parishad elections in July, Paswan had accepted Rs 5 crore from candidates in Ara, Nalanda and Hajipur where he fielded known criminals and all of them were defeated. He asked the BJP leadership to deny tickets to the candidates recommended by Paswan.
Ashok Gupta, general secretary of the RLSP, one of the NDA constituents too alleged that his party president Upendra Kumar Kushwaha was demanding crores from candidates. One of the aspirants, a retired engineer suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital when Kushwaha informed him that he would not get ticket.
HAM president and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi too has been accused of selling party tickets by three senior leaders – Padmasha Jha, who was MLC for two terms, two retired chief secretary rank officers, I Brahimi and Pancham Lal, who have decided to join Samajwadi Party on Tuesday here.
