Everyone wants to contest elections at this time. The denial of tickets to willing candidates has even caused rebellion in many frontline parties but in a curious move, one of the JD-U candidates has returned the ticket to the party saying he doesn’t want to contest, prompting the JDU leadership to give the candidature to a BJP leader. The Sitamarhi ticket fiasco has caused a serious embarrassment to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD-U that had fielded Dr Varun Kumar from the seat.

North Bihar’s Sitamarhi seat is currently held by the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP). The party had announced Dr Varun Kumar’s candidature at a press conference held in Patna on 23 March and was planning to launch poll campaign in the constituency when he suddenly expressed his inability to contest the elections.

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“I don’t want to contest as the local units of both the JD-U and the BJP were not cooperating with me and terming me as an outsider. So I have decided not to contest the polls,” the JD-U candidate reportedly said in his letter to the chief minister sent a couple of days back. It is said the local party workers had opened a front against the JD-U candidate, accusing him of getting ticket through “money power”.

Reports said refusal to contest elections caused much setback to the JD-U but it kept the matter under carpet. Subsequently, it launched extensive searches for the suitable party candidate but failed to get anyone within the JD-U.

Eventually, the JD-U contacted the BJP leadership which suggested the former to give ticket to his party leader Sunil Kumar Pintu who had earlier served as a minister in the NDA government.

On Wednesday, Pintu was formally inducted into the JD-U since the Sitamarhi seat had gone to the JD-U share under the seat-sharing. Soon after he switched over to the JD-U, he was handed over the party symbol. “It’s nothing less than a miracle for me. Barely an hour before I was nothing but I am contesting the LS polls,” Pintu told reporters. Sitamarhi goes to poll on 6 May in the sixth phase.

The Opposition took potshots at the JD-U accusing the latter of being a sinking ship. “The NDA candidates are running away from contesting elections out of fear of defeat,” alleged Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) leader Danish Rizwan.