All three Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) legislators late on Wednesday night joined the BJP in Bihar. In the Assembly elections in 2020, four VIP MLAs had won the poll and one of them, Musafir Paswan from Bochaha (Muzaffarpur), had died in November 2021.
With the three VIP MLAs in its kitty, the BJP has now become the largest party with 77 MLAs in the Assembly. The RJD with 75 legislators has come to the second position. The JD(U) has 45 MLAs, the Congress 19 and the Lefts parties have 15 MLAs.
The VIP is led by Mukesh Sahani who had fielded 57 candidates against the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll. He has also put up a candidate Geeta Devi against BJP’s Baby Kumari in the Bochaha Assembly bypoll scheduled to take place on April 12.
Mr. Sahani is an MLC whose term will expire in July. He is the Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Minister in the NDA government in Bihar led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The three VIP MLAs — Raju Singh (Sahebganj), Swarna Singh (Gaura Bauram) and Mishrilal Yadav (Alinagar) — joined BJP in the presence of State president Sanjay Jaiswal, senior party leaders and Deputy Chief Ministers Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi. Till late Wednesday night, they were sitting in Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha’s chamber.
“We were earlier in the BJP and when our party leader Mukesh Sahani decided to contest against BJP candidate in Bochaha bypoll, we chose to make our ghar wapasi (home coming) to BJP,” Mr. Raju Singh told mediamen outside the Assembly. The other two party MLAs too said the same. “Our joining the BJP is in the interest of the State and the country,” Mr. Mishrilal Yadav added.
Later, Mr. Jaiswal held a press meet at the party headquarters and said for “these three MLAs it is a home coming as they were in the BJP but had contested the last Assembly poll on the VIP ticket in an electoral situation which had come up at that time”.
Mr. Sahani, popularly known as “Son of Mallah [fishermen community]” is now left with no MLA in his party. He had lost the last Assembly poll but later became an MLC to join the Nitish Kumar government.
Recently, he said he was no longer part of the NDA in Bihar and had even vowed to make Opposition RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav CM for 2.5 years and get his party’s support.
Mr. Sahani’s move to field Geeta Devi in the bypoll is said to have added fuel to the fire between the two parties.. “It was an open defiance against the BJP so all the three MLAs have decided to join us again,” said a senior State BJP leader.
Sources in the BJP told The Hindu that one of the three MLAs might become a Minister in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet.
