Bihar Assembly Elections 2025: RJD women's wing chief to contest as Independent against party candidate in Parihar

Patna: RJD women's wing state president Ritu Jaiswal on Sunday announced that she will be contesting the Parihar assembly seat in Bihar as an Independent candidate in protest against the party giving a ticket to her detractor.

In a Facebook post, she voiced anguish that the ticket has gone to the "daughter-in-law of Ram Chandra Purve", a former state president of the RJD, whose "betrayal", she blamed, for her defeat from the seat in 2020, by a margin of less than 2,000 votes.

"I am going to file nomination papers tomorrow as an Independent candidate. The party has signalled that it was willing to accommodate me in another constituency. But that would be a deal against my conscience", said the 48-year-old, who had started off as an educated Panchayat Mukhiya.

Married to a former civil servant Arun Kumar, who gave up a lucrative career to get elected as the Mukhiya of the same Singjvahini Panchayat of Sitamarhi that was previously headed by the wife, Jaiswal had also contested the Lok Sabha polls last year from Sheohar constituency, where she lost by a margin of less than 30,000 votes to Lovely Anand of JD(U).

Although the RJD has not yet formally announced names of any of its candidates, photos of Purve's daughter-in-law Smita receiving the party symbol from Tejashwi Yadav, son and heir apparent of national president Lalu Prasad, have gone viral on social media.