Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Pappu Yadav didn’t join Cong, nor his party merged, says Alok Sharma

'I do not think he had merged his party with the Congress. He also did not take a membership slip in Patna, which anybody from Bihar, who joins the party, needs to do,' said AICC spokesperson Alok Sharma.

Patna: The Congress on Wednesday claimed that former Bihar MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who has contested the ongoing elections as an Independent, had fallen short of merging his fledgling outfit and getting membership of the party.

AICC spokesperson Alok Sharma made the claim at a press meet here, in response to queries about Yadav, who contested from Purnea, which went to ally RJD as per the seat-sharing formula in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.

"I do not think he had merged his party with the Congress. He also did not take a membership slip in Patna, which anybody from Bihar, who joins the party, needs to do," said Sharma.

His attention was drawn to the much-publicized press conference in Delhi, where Yadav was welcomed into the party, and the merger of his Jan Adhikar Party was announced, by AICC Bihar in-charge Mohan Prakash and media and publicity department head Pawan Khera.

"Many people turn up at press conferences to have snacks," Sharma cryptically said, adding, "What I am trying to say is that the process could not be completed."

Sharma's stance seems at variance with that of Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh, who had asked Yadav to withdraw nomination papers since 'the party does not allow its members to fight as Independent candidates'.

It was, however, speculated widely that the Congress may find a way to extricate itself from the tangle around Yadav, who is said to have done well in the April 26 polls and whom the RJD may gun for in the event of defeat of its own candidate.

Yadav is married to Rajya Sabha Congress MP Ranjit Ranjan and calls himself 'a soldier of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, till my last breath'.

It is believed that he was denied a Congress ticket under pressure from domineering ally RJD which fielded Bima Bharti, a JD(U) turncoat, from Purnea.

However, Sharma denied the suggestion, claiming 'there has been no interference from the RJD. Like everywhere else, the Congress chose candidates in Bihar on its own. Our alliance will win more than 30 seats in Bihar and the Congress' tally should be around six to seven'.

The state has 40 Lok Sabha seats, out of which, among I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners, the RJD is contesting 23, followed by Congress (nine), CPI(ML) and Vikassheel Insan Party (three each) and CPI and CPI(M) one each.

For decades, the Congress has come to be seen as a spent force in Bihar though in 2019 it was the only party outside the BJP-led NDA to have won a seat in the state.

Sharma also lashed out at the BJP for its truck with former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's JD(S) in Karnataka, which has been rocked by a sex scandal allegedly involving an MP who is also closely related to the ex-PM.

The Congress spokesperson also questioned the Election Commission's 'inability to muster the courage' to issue a notice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for alleged objectionable speeches at election rallies.

"More than 17,000 letters had been shot off to the EC from across the country before it sent a notice to BJP national president JP Nadda (regarding Modi’s speeches)," said Sharma.