Giridih/Ranchi: He is neither highly qualified, nor has a huge following on social media, but his and Kanhaiya Kumar – CPM’s candidate from Begusarai have similar political circumstances.
Meet the candidate of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) for Koderma’s parliamentary constituency Rajkumar Yadav. This Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Dhanwar is a mass leader, and his votes increase substantially with every election that he faces. His candidature on Koderma Lok Sabha seat is so strong that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has had to deny ticket to its sitting MP Ravindra Rai, who had also served as the BJP state president in 2014 and helped the party to win 12 out of 14 seats in Jharkhand.
The 46-year-old leader is only a matriculate, but he raises the public issue inside and outside assembly so frequently that he has even been jailed for the same. He has been embroiled in four cases, but all are of sections 147, 148 and 323 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) nature, which refers to mass agitation stirred by him when he took on to the street for the cause of the common man, following which he had been slapped by court cases by the administration.
In 2004, when Rajkumar had fought Lok Sabha election for the first time – from the prison – he had secured 1.36 lakh votes. In 2009, he got over 1.5 lakh votes to get the second position. During the 2014 election when political pundits claimed there was a Modi wave, his votes soared higher and crossed two and half lakhs—2.67 votes. This time also, he was the runner up.
Dhanwar legislator considers Mahendra Singh, the slain Bagoder MLA his mentor. It was Singh, a three-time legislator and a firebrand leader, who shaped Rajkumar’s political career.
Other political party leaders have also word of praise for the Dhanwar MLA. Arup Chatterjee, MLA from Nirsa assembly segment who came in for the nomination of Rajkumar told eNewsroom, “Rajkumar ji is the only MLA in Jharkhand Assembly, who has raised many issues ferociously. Whether it is the issue of anganbadi, para-teachers, or against displacement or domicile policy of the government, from Ranchi to any place of the state where there was agitation, he led it from the front. It will not only benefit the people of Koderma but the entire country, if such people reach to the parliament.”
Listen what Nirsa MLA Arun Chatterjee has to say about Rajkumar Yadav
On April 11, Rajkumar filed his nomination papers for Koderma Lok Sabha seat as a CPI (ML) candidate. Koderma is one of the most politically important seats of Jharkhand, which is going to have a triangular fight, where Rajkumar will take on BJP’s Annapurna Devi and Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (JVM) president and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi. Annapurna had been associated with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s Jharkhand chief, days before she joined the BJP.
Babulal Marandi and Rajkumar have contested several Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Since 2004, the two have contested against each other in almost every election. And in the most recent, 2014 assembly polls, Rajkumar had defeated Babulal.
Rajkumar believes, Babulal has no fight as he has represented Koderma in the parliament for 10 years, but failed its people by doing nothing for the Mica town. Every year thousands of men migrated from this town in search of work, the issue of migration and migrant workers will be one of the core issues for Rajkumar’s election campaign.
Talking about Annapurna he claims, that she had cheated the people who considered her a leader who believed in social justice and secularism. Annapurna, Bengali by birth had married Ramesh Yadav, a dominant Yadav leader and had been a prominent RJD leader.
Now, like Kanhaiya Kumar, Rajkumar will have to fight the election against BJP candidate and gathbandhan leader for the Koderma seat.
Other political party leaders also praise Dhanwar MLA’s work. Arun Chatterjee, MLA of Nirsa constituency also came in the nomination of Rajkumar told eNewsroom, “Rajkumar ji is the only MLA in Jharkhand assembly, who has raised many issues ferociously. Whether it is the issue of anganbadi, para-teachers, or against displacement or domicile policy of the government, from Ranchi to anywhere where there was agitation, he led from the front. It will not only benefit the people of Koderma but for whole country, if such people go to parliament.”
