Misa Bharti Wins The Elusive Patliputra On Her Third Attempt In Major RJD Victory (image-Facebook/Dr. Misa Bharti)
In their third rematch, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Misa Bharti has finally won the seat against the BJP’s two-time MP Ram Kripal Yadav with a margin of 85,174 votes. While the daughter of former chief minister and RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav secured 6,13,283 votes, Yadav came in second with 5,28,109 votes.
Misa’s victory is a major achievement for the RJD and the INDIA alliance. The elusive Patliputra seat has always been out of reach for the Lalu Yadav clan. In the 2009 elections, Lalu contested from both Saran and Patliputra. Although he won from Saran, he lost the Patliputra seat to Janata Dal (United) candidate and former ally Ranjan Prasad Yadav. In their second attempt to wrest the seat, Lalu’s eldest daughter, Misa Bharti, made her debut and contested the elections. Once again, it was another former ally, Ram Kripal Yadav, this time who inflicted another loss to the RJD supremo as part of the ‘Modi wave’. The BJP candidate won the seat with 3.8 lakh votes, bagging the seat, while Misa won 3.4 lakh votes. Not giving up, Misa, a Rajya Sabha MP, tried her luck once again in the 2019 elections. The rematch between the two yielded the same results: RJD had failed to win the seat again.
PM Modi’s recent remarks on the INDIA alliance’s “plan to rob” Dalits and backward classes of their rights and accusing the opposition of “enslavement” and performing “mujra” for Muslims have reportedly not been well received by the Yadav population, as per The Print, and seem to have worked in Misa’s favour. Additionally, to bolster party support among the residents of Patliputra, the entire Lalu clan – Lalu, wife Rabri Devi, daughter Rohini Acharya, and son Tejashwi Yadav – stepped out for campaigning, which helped Misa maintain a lead throughout.
Senior BJP leader Ram Kripal started his political career as an RJD member. He served as an RJD member for 17 years, and was a close aide of the party supremo. Joining the BJP just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Kripal claimed that RJD was promoting ‘family justice’ instead of social justice. The BJP MP wanted to contest from Pataliputra on the RJD ticket, but when party supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav fielded his daughter Misa Bharti, Ram Kripal Yadav quit the party to join its major rival, the BJP.
With Patliputra under the RJD, the party has secured a formidable win under the leadership of youth leader Misa’s brother, Tejashwi Yadav.
