IT Correspondent
New Delhi, Oct 8:
Bihar ex-DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who had expressed doubts about investigation by the Mumbai Police into Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and had insisted that the case be transferred from Mumbai to Patna, has been denied ticket by the Janata Dal (U) for ensuing Bihar assembly elections.
Pandey, had taken voluntarily retirement from the job and had formally joined JD(U) last month in the presence of the chief minister Nitish Kumar. The 59-year-old 1987-batch IPS officer was in the running for a party ticket from Buxar or Shahpur for the state polls.
However his name found missing from the list of 115 candidates released by the JD(U) on Wednesday.
While JD (U) has finalised 115 candidates, the BJP has released a list of 27 candidates and RJD has released the list of 42 candidates.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s relative Chandrika Roy has been fielded from his traditional Parsa assembly seat. Six-time MLA Chandrika Rai, father of Tej Pratap Yadav’s estranged wife Aishwarya, had joined JD(U) in August after quitting RJD earlier this year.
But Pandey does have a history with politics. In 2009, he had taken voluntary retirement hoping to contest Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket from Buxar, but that time BJP denied him the ticket, which was given to incumbent Lal Muni Chaubey.
Now it is to be seen whether Pandey gets the JDU ticket for the Valmiki Nagar parliamentary constituency by poll which has been clubbed with Bihar Assembly elections. The seat fell vacant following the death of JD (U) MP Baidyanath Prasad Mahto in February this year. The Valmiki Nagar parliamentary constituency byp oll has been clubbed with Bihar Assembly elections.
In the meanwhile Maharashtra’s ruling party Shiv Sena has announced that it would contest 50 seats in Bihar assembly elections. In fact the Sena wanted to take on Pandey, if was in the fray. However now Pandey’s future seems to be uncertain.
