PATNA: For the first time in three decades, not a single member of the family of late RJD stalwart Md Shahabuddin has found a place in the party’s rejigged panels, marking a purge that is being partly attributed to the former MP’s camp allegedly playing a role in the party’s loss to BJP in the recent Gopalganj assembly bypoll.
The absence of a member of Shahabuddin’s family in the reconstituted team comes barely 16 months after his death. The ex-MP had represented Siwan in the Lok Sabha for four consecutive terms, from 1996 to 2004.
Shahabuddin’s wife Hena Shahab had been a member of RJD’s national executive and also the central parliamentary board until the overhaul. Her absence from either RJD’s 81-member national executive, central parliamentary board or state parliamentary board has led many to believe that the party has turned its back completely on the family.
Shahabuddin’s supporters allegedly had a hand in the defeat of RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta at the hands of BJP’s Kusum Devi by 1,794 votes in Gopalganj. AIMIM’s Abdul Salam polled more than 12,000 votes, which RJD sources blamed on the clan engineering a split in the Muslim base.
RJD had fielded Hena in Siwan in 2009, 2014 and 2019 after Shahabuddin was disqualified from contesting polls because of his conviction in murder cases, but she lost on each occasion. Hena’s supporters ostensibly wanted RJD to nominate her either to the Rajya Sabha or the Bihar legislative council, which the party refused. Shahabuddin’s wife recently declared she wasn’t in any party and would decide her course of action after talking to her supporters.
State RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav said the party had accommodated every section of the society in the newly-formed committee to live up to its promise of being an “A to Z” party.
The absence of a member of Shahabuddin’s family in the reconstituted team comes barely 16 months after his death. The ex-MP had represented Siwan in the Lok Sabha for four consecutive terms, from 1996 to 2004.
Shahabuddin’s wife Hena Shahab had been a member of RJD’s national executive and also the central parliamentary board until the overhaul. Her absence from either RJD’s 81-member national executive, central parliamentary board or state parliamentary board has led many to believe that the party has turned its back completely on the family.
Shahabuddin’s supporters allegedly had a hand in the defeat of RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta at the hands of BJP’s Kusum Devi by 1,794 votes in Gopalganj. AIMIM’s Abdul Salam polled more than 12,000 votes, which RJD sources blamed on the clan engineering a split in the Muslim base.
RJD had fielded Hena in Siwan in 2009, 2014 and 2019 after Shahabuddin was disqualified from contesting polls because of his conviction in murder cases, but she lost on each occasion. Hena’s supporters ostensibly wanted RJD to nominate her either to the Rajya Sabha or the Bihar legislative council, which the party refused. Shahabuddin’s wife recently declared she wasn’t in any party and would decide her course of action after talking to her supporters.
State RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav said the party had accommodated every section of the society in the newly-formed committee to live up to its promise of being an “A to Z” party.
