By P. Sarojini’
Patna (CWBN)_ Luv Sinha, the son of the Bollywood veteran Shatrughan Sinha, is the Congress candidate from Bankipore pitted against the BJP candidate and the three-time MLA Nitin Navin. Luv Sinha is 37 and he is all set to debut in Bihar politics as the Congress candidate for Bankipore. Bankipore which is one of the main parts Bihar had elected the former Union Minister Shatrughan Sinha twice to parliament in the years 2009 and 2014 when he was in BJP. Last year, after he was dropped by the BJP, Shatrughan Sinha joined Congress and contested as the Congress candidate where he lost to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Like Patna Sahib, Bankipore is also one of the strongholds of BJP. Here the caste plays the major role in selecting the candidates for the polls, where both belong to the upper caste Kayasthas.
Moreover, this is one of the 70 seats that fell in the Congress’s share while allocating seats in the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led opposition alliance. Internally, the party has been stewing about seats like this, more or less seen as a lost cause, where RJD had no hope of winning at all.
Shatrughan Sinha’s close associate Rajiv Kank said that it would be incorrect to call Patna Sahib a BJP seat. “It is not that Luv is not familiar with Patna,” he said. “In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he camped in Patna and visited every corner of Patna Sahib. It is wrong to attribute Bankipur seat as a BJP seat.”
Another interesting candidate in the forthcoming polls of Bihar is the newly-formed Plural Party’s Pushpam Priya Chaudhary. She entered politics through advertisements in newspapers and earlier called herself the future Chief Minister of Bihar.
Other prominent candidates in the Congress list for Bihar elections include Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav’s daughter Subhashini Raj Rao from Bihariganj and former Lok Janshakti Party leader Kali Prasad Pandey from Kuchaikote.
Luv Sinha had a short-lived Bollywood career. His first movie was Sadiyaan in 2010 and last one was Paltan in 2018. His father Shatrughan Sinha, who is 74 now, is a Bollywood veteran and an actor-turned politician, and his mother Poonam Sinha was the Samajwadi Party’s candidate for the 2019 national election from Lucknow, where Union Minister Rajnath Singh won. Luv’s sister Sonakshi Sinha is a successful Bollywood actress who starred in several box office hits.
Following his parent’s footsteps, luv is the third from his family to have a political career. On selecting their candidates, it was announced that Bihar will vote on October 28, November 3 and 7. The results of the election will be declared on November 10.
