Senior Bihar BJP leader rebels, to contest as Independent

Priyarag Verma,IBNLive.com | Mar 25, 2014 at 08:47am IST

Patna: One more senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and four-time MP from Bihar, Lal Muni Chaubey, has also raised the banner of revolt against the party leadership and even called party President Rajnath Singh "a leader of slaves" who has sidelined genuine supporters.
Chaubey, who was denied the ticket from Buxar in eastern Bihar, has decided to contest as an Independent against BJP's official Ashwini Kumar Chaubey. He is likely to file his nomination on Tuesday afternoon.
"BJP has become a party of slaves and Rajnath Singh is a leader of slaves. I belong to Buxar as well as Varanasi. I will ensure BJP loses in the poorvanchal belt of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh including Varanasi," Lal Muni Chaubey said. BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is contesting from Varanasi apart from Vadodara in Gujarat.

Lal Muni Chaubey alleged that senior leaders like Lal Krishna Advani and Jaswant Singh had been humiliated by the party leadership.

Echoing his colleague from Rajasthan Jaswant Singh's views, he claimed that the voters of Buxar would defeat the "fake BJP candidate". He said that Ashwini Kumar Chaubey is an outsider who wanted to contest from Bhagalpur but the party placated him by accommodating him from Buxar.
Denying reports that BJP leadership has offered him the post of governor after the party forms the government at the Centre, Chaubey said he was not interested in any post and wanted to strengthen the party which had been admitting even those people in large numbers who had been its virulent critics just a few days back.
He alleged that senior leaders like Lal Krishna Advani and Jaswant Singh had been humiliated by the party leadership. Pointing that the name of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani are missing from the campaign slogans, he added that the latter has been given the Gandhinagar seat to ensure his defeat so that there is no one who can challenge the top leaders.
Chaubey had won from Buxar in 1996, 98, 99 and 2004. He narrowly lost to Rashtriya Janata Dal's Sadanand Singh in the 2009 elections by just over 2000 votes.