Retd army officer among 2 candidates replaced by Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj

Lt Gen Singh, a former army vice chief, has been dropped because he was a registered voter in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida, and not in Bihar. This rendered him ineligible to contest assembly elections in Bihar under section 5(c) of the Representation of the People Act, which requires candidates to be electors of any assembly seat of the state where they file their nomination.

The army officer has been replaced by Kiran Singh, a social activist who works for women’s empowerment and education in the Tarari area, local party leader Ghanshyam Rai announced at a Press conference in Ara, the headquarters of Bhojpur district, in the presence of founder Prashant Kishor and acting president Manoj Bharti.

The party said Lt Gen Singh submitted the form to get his name added but this wasn’t done on the grounds that no new names could be added to the electoral roll once the model code of conduct has kicked in.

Kishor said: “Lt Gen Singh could not fight as election officials insisted that he needed to have his name in the local electoral roll. We chose to go ahead with other candidates instead of making an issue out of Lt Gen Singh. In any case, his choice has sent across a strong message in favour of Jan Suraaj”.

The party has also replaced Khilafat Hussain who was named as the party candidate from Belaganj seat in Gaya district, following resentment within the party over the choice. At Wednesday’s event, Hussain, a retired professor of Mirza Ghalib College stepped aside and announced Md Amjad, a former mukhiya, as his replacement. Amjad had been active in Jan Suraaj since the beginning and was widely expected to be named as the candidate.

The party had previously named Jitendra Paswan, a paediatrician from Imamganj (reserved for scheduled caste) and Sushil Singh Kushwaha from Ramgarh. Kushwaha, who has previously been Bihar general secretary of the Bahujan Samaj Party, had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and lost.