Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for Madhepura seat...SP’s fixation with Bollywood

The Statesman News Service Reports:

Patna, Jan. 28: Key UPA partners are fighting amongst themselves to lodge their claims over as many Lok Sabha seats in Bihar as they can, even as seat-sharing talks are yet to begin. Barely two days after LJP chief Mr Ram Vilas Paswan announced candidates for 20 of the 40 LS seats in Bihar, the Samajwadi Party has recommended the name of cine star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for Madhepura seat, which is represented by Mr Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav (RJD) in the Lok Sabha. Mr Ranjan is currently lodged in the high-security Tihar jail in New Delhi, serving a life term awarded by a local court for the murder of CPI-M leader Ajit Sarkar.
“Yes, I have recommended the name of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to the Central Parliamentary Board chairman,” said SP’s state Parliamentary board chairman Mr Tulsi Singh today. He said there was huge pressure on him from the party workers to recommend Mrs Bachchan’s name for this seat and he did that respecting the feelings of the party workers. “Let’s see what the Central Parliamentary Board decides.”
The move is being considered as a master stroke by the SP to open its account here cashing in on the huge popularity of Mrs Bachchan, daughter-in-law of Amitabh Bachchan, and thus gaining a foothold in Bihar, which has been an RJD bastion for about two decades. In the last LS polls, the RJD alone won 22 out of 26 seats it contested while a united UPA had walked away with 29 seats, leaving just 11 seats for the NDA. The SP has no member in either House of Parliament from Bihar but it has two members in the state Assembly.
What has prompted the local party leaders, sources informed, to recommend Mrs Bachchan’s name for Madhepura seat is that the SP has already announced the names of two film stars, Sanjay Dutt and Bhojpuri actor Manoj Tiwari, for two LS seats in Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, she comes from a family with which the party’s general secretary Mr Amar Singh has very good relations.
The local leaders consider Madhepura, one of the districts worst affected by the Kosi floods this year, a safe seat for the party given the strong resentment prevailing among the local leaders about the ruling NDA government. Local villagers, it may be noted here, have strongly blamed the callousness on the part of the ruling NDA regime for the Kosi disaster, which killed close to 400 people and badly affected over five million people settled in 18 of the 38 districts of Bihar.
Quite interestingly, the LJP too has made unilateral announcement of its candidates for 20 seats in Bihar. The seats for which candidates have been announced include Araria, Purnia, Supaul, Khagaria, Hajipur, Jehanabad, Begusarai, Sheohar, Samastipur, Motihari, Gaya, Patliputra, Ujjiyarpur, Nawada, Balmikinagar, Muzaffarpur, Betia, Bagaha and Ara.