Shatrughan Sinha

Patna, July 25: The battle in the Lok Sabha has left the BJP a “bruised” outfit, especially after it sacked eight MPs for defying the party whip in Parliament.

But the BJP’s troubles are not over yet. Two of its star leaders from Bihar, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha and national spokesman Ravishankar Prasad are now engaged in a bitter battle for the Patna Saheb Lok Sabha seat on the party ticket.

It was Sinha, who set the ball rolling last week stating that the party’s central leadership had cleared his candidature for the Patna Saheb Lok Sabha seat.

“My candidature on the Patna Saheb seat is as sure as that of Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and M.M. Joshi on their respective seats,” he said.

Soon, Ravishankar flew to Patna to say: “The BJP leadership has so far taken no decision about any of the Bihar seats. The party’s election committee will clear the names of candidates first.”

Prasad’s assertions failed to silence Sinha.

After Ravishankar’s claim, the star clarified: “The central leaders just asked me to put my finger on any of the seats I wanted to contest and I chose Patna Saheb seat as I belong to Patna.”

Ravishankar, who has been trying hard to secure a party ticket to contest the Patna Saheb seat, refused to buy Sinha’s claim. “Even senior leaders don’t announce their own candidature,” he fumed.

The BJP also has a third candidate for the seat waiting in the wings, albeit silently. He is reportedly R.K. Sinha, an industrialist and a veteran party leader belonging to Patna.

Sinha’s plus point is the fact that he has the backing of the Bihar chief minister and NDA star campaigner Nitish Kumar.

While Ravishankar and Sinha landed here for a few hours just to stake a claim over the Patna Saheb seat, Sinha was busy in performing relief work and distributing food packets among marooned people in the waterlogged areas of Patna.

He, too, has been working hard to solicit the support of Kayasthas, who are numerically preponderant in Patna Saheb constituency. R.K. Sinha is the member of the community.

Sinha earned brownie points from Nitish Kumar by campaigning for the JD(U) candidate during the Bikramganj Lok Sabha seat polls. Observers believe that Sinha can emerge a “dark horse” in the Shotgun-Ravishankar battle, if Nitish happens to put his foot down in his favour.