Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who is contesting the bypoll to the Bankipur assembly seat in Bihar, on Monday charged BJP national president Nitin Nabin with having "abandoned" the constituency "at the first opportunity to enter Parliament".
Kishor, who seeks to wrest the seat that had elected Nabin five times on the trot, the last occasion being last year's assembly polls, pointed out that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had not given up his seat in Gujarat Vidhan Sabha upon becoming the BJP chief.
"Yes, I know that the BJP considers Bankipur as its stronghold. Voters here have repeatedly reposed their trust in Nitin Nabin. But Nitin Nabin took no time in forgetting them. He abandoned the seat at the first opportunity to enter Parliament", the former poll strategist told PTI video.
Kishor rejected the BJP's claim that after being elected to the top party post, Nabin's continuance as a member of a state assembly had become untenable, a reason why he got elected to the Rajya Sabha in April.
The IPAC founder, who had handled Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll campaign in 2014, pointed out, "We have the example of Amit Shah. He was a member of the legislative assembly in Gujarat when he became the BJP president. He did not give up his seat. There was no compulsion for Nabin to move to Delhi. He chose to do so".
Notably, Shah became the national president of the BJP in 2014, shortly after Modi became Prime Minister, and retained his Naranpura assembly seat until 2017 when he was elected to the Rajya Sabha.
However, Kishor made it clear, "We are not fighting this election on the issue of Nabin abandoning the seat. We are urging the people to vote for us so that the arrogant BJP government in the state, headed by Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, get a lesson".
"You can hear many BJP leaders say that even a cat or a dog can win Bankipur if it were fielded on that party's ticket. This smacks of the contempt the BJP has for voters of a constituency where the people happen to be the richest and the most highly educated in Bihar. A victory for Jan Suraaj Party will teach a lesson to the BJP, which is taking them for granted", said Kishor.
The bypoll to the assembly constituency is scheduled on July 30. The BJP, which has never lost the seat since the 1990s, is yet to declare its candidate for the bypoll, which seems poised for a multi-cornered contest.
The RJD, the main opposition party in the state, has declared Rekha Gupta, the runner-up of last year's assembly polls. Janshakti Janata Dal, headed by RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's estranged elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, has fielded social activist Veena Manvi.