PATNA: In a major blow to Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Hena Shahab, wife of former don-turned-MP late Mohammad Shahabuddin, announced on Monday that she would contest from Bihar’s Siwan as an Independent candidate in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Talking to media persons, Hena Shahab said in Siwan that if she did not fight the election for some reason, then she would like to field her son Osama as an Independent candidate from the seat, which earlier her husband Mohammad Shahabuddin had represented four times in the Lok Sabha till he was debarred from contesting in 2009.
In response to a media query, she clarified that she was no longer associated with the RJD, which had given a ticket to her thrice from Siwan. She lost in 2009, 2014 and 2019. In the last Lok Sabha poll, she was defeated by Kavita Singh, wife of another muscleman Ajay Singh. Kavita had contested as a Janata Dal (United) candidate in 2019 and won the seat.
Siwan was synonymous with Shahabuddin since the 1990s. Shahabuddin, once considered a right hand man of Lalu Prasad, had virtually ruled over Siwan, directly or indirectly, for nearly three decades before being finally convicted in a kidnapping case and subsequently debarred from contesting elections by the election commission.
Another don Ajay Singh, son of former MLA late Jagmato Devi, challenged Shahabuddin’s fiefdom and fielded his wife as the JD(U) nominee from Siwan in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Earlier, Kavita was elected as MLA from Darauda assembly constituency in Siwan district.
Siwan is among the few Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar, where the Muslim-Yadav combination nurtured assiduously by Lalu, had gone for a toss if the defeat of Hena Shahab is taken into account. The majority of Yadavs had thrown their weight behind the CPI-ML and the BJP in the high-profile constituency.
Hena Shahab has, however, been striving hard to restore her husband’s political clout in Siwan, which has been on the wane ever since her husband’s death in Tihar Jail where he was serving his sentence. She has so far received little success on this front.
Her son Osama, a law graduate, has been in the thick of controversy for sometime as he was recently released from jail after the Patna high court granted him regular bail. It will be interesting to note whether Hena Shahab or her son is able to retrieve Mohammad Shahabuddin’s political fiefdom in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
