PATNA: Former minister and senior leader Mangani Lal Mandal filed his nomination for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) state president’s post on Saturday in the presence of party supremo Lalu Prasad, Opposition leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, and other senior leaders.
Mandal, who belongs to the Extremely Backward Community (EBC), is set to be elected unopposed as no contender filed nomination papers against his candidature. Mandal will be the first EBC leader to be elected as state president, and the ninth state president since the formation of the RJD.
“A formal announcement about Mandal being elected as the state unit chief will be made at a meeting of the state executive committee of the party to be held on June 19. He will replace Jagadanand Singh, who was holding the post since November 2019,” a senior RJD leader said.
RJD spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwari said that it will only be a formality to announce the name of Mandal as the new chief of RJD. “He has been elected unopposed,” he said, adding that Mandal comes from a socialist background and had earlier served with former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur.
Mandal, who hails from Phulparas in north Bihar’s Mithilanchal region, had earlier quit the Janata Dal (United) led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and joined the RJD. Ever since he snapped ties with JD(U), it was expected that he would file his nomination for the RJD state president’s post.
Welcoming Mandal’s election as state president, RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav said that Mandal is a veteran politician who believes in the ideology of socialist icons like Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, and Karpoori Thakur.
Mandal served as a member of the state legislative assembly from 1986 to 2004 and was also a minister in the state cabinet. He was elected as a Member of Parliament from the Jhanjharpur Lok Sabha seat in Madhubani district in 2009 on a JD(U) ticket.
Though names of other senior RJD leaders, including Alok Kumar Mehta and Ranvijay Sahu, were also doing the rounds, Mandal was the frontrunner for the party’s state president post for being an EBC and for his proximity to the RJD’s first family. “He is not only close to Lalu Ji but also to Tejashwi Yadav,” an RJD leader claimed.
Political analysts believe that the selection of Mandal as state president of the RJD assumes significance in the wake of the state assembly elections due in October-November this year. “This is an attempt by the RJD to woo EBC voters, who constitute nearly 36 per cent of the state’s population,” they said.
EBCs are traditionally regarded as core voters of Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) for the past several decades. However, the Opposition RJD has attempted to eat into the JD(U)’s vote bank by nominating Mandal as the state party chief. “This sends a clear message to EBC voters,” a senior RJD leader said.
Mandal, a former MP, had lost his membership of the House in November 2011 on charges of concealing significant information in his affidavit. On February 1, 2012, the Patna High Court found him guilty in the case and ordered the cancellation of his membership.
However, the Supreme Court restored his membership on February 8, 2012. Mandal had been accused of concealing information about his assets in his election affidavit. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Mandal was expelled from JD(U) for issuing statements against the party’s top leadership.
Incumbent RJD state president Jagadanand stopped visiting the RJD office ever since his younger son Ajit Kumar Singh lost in a by-election on the Ramgarh seat in Kaimur district.