The Congress on Monday announced the parliamentary seat for Kirti Azad, who had recently left the BJP to join the party. The party released the names of two candidates including Azad, who will be contesting this year’s Lok Sabha polls from Dhanbad in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand.
Azad had represented Darbhanga in Bihar in 2014 after he won on a BJP ticket with a huge margin. According to the latest list, announced by the Congress, Kalicharan Munda will contest from Khunti Lok Sabha seat in Jharkhand.
With this announcement, the Congress has, so far, released the list of 379 out of 543 candidates for this year’s parliamentary elections.
Azad had fallen out of favour with the BJP leadership after he sensationally accused Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of corruption in the Delhi District and Cricket Association during his tenure as the cricket body’s president. Embarrassed by his outbursts, the BJP had suspended Azad from the party.
When the seat sharing among the Congress, the RJD, the RLSP, the HAM, the VIP and the CPIML was finalised last month, Darbhanga seat had gone to the the RJD. This had given rise to speculations that the seat distribution may create a rift among the coalition partners of the anti-BJP alliance.
Azad’s father Bhagwat Jha Azad was a tall Congress leader and headed the last Congress-led government in Bihar until Lalu Prasad Yadav formed his first ever non-Congress government in the state in 1990. Azad was also a part of the World Cup-winning Indian cricket team in 1983.