Kishor said nominee Shashi Shekhar Sinha quit the race citing age but was forced out by BJP pressure.
Rebel BJP leader Srivastava, now backed by Jan Suraaj, will contest as an independent.
Kishor accused BJP of poaching and intimidating his party’s candidates across Bihar.
Prashant Kishor Backs BJP Rebel In Gopalganj, Alleges BJP Pressure Tactics
Jan Suraaj Party to support independent Anup Kumar Srivastava after its candidate withdrew under alleged BJP coercion.
Summary
Prashant Kishor, the founder of the Jan Suraaj Party, declared his backing for renegade BJP candidate Anup Kumar Srivastava in Gopalganj, Bihar, claiming that his own nominee, Shashi Shekhar Sinha, had withdrawn from the race due to pressure from the saffron party.
At a press conference in Gopalganj, Kishor made the announcement, emphasising that Srivastava's case was a "exception" to the rule that his one-year-old party did not issue tickets to disgruntled members of other parties who joined the Jan Suraaj Party shortly before elections. Srivastava is a candidate running on his own.
"Srivastava, who is a well-known social worker in Gopalganj, has also served as the district BJP president. He alleges that the party overlooked his claim to field a person with deep pockets", Kishor said.
"So, in this constituency, both he and Jan Suraaj Party are victims of BJP's injustice. Sinha withdrew from the contest, citing old age and ill health. He seems to have realised after campaigning for a few days that at 76 years, he did not have the energy to contest an election. I have learnt from credible sources that he withdrew under pressure from the BJP", Kishor alleged.
Notably, the Jan Suraaj Party has accused the BJP of pressuring its candidates to abstain from voting in a representation they filed with the Election Commission.
In order to claim that top leadership was complicit in the poaching of his candidates, Kishor has also been showing pictures of the party's Danapur candidate Mutru Sah with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Brahmapur nominee Satya Prakash Tiwari with Dharmendra Pradhan, the BJP's in-charge for the current elections.
Kishor acknowledged that with the nomination process over, “we cannot allot the Jan Suraaj Party symbol to Srivastava. But, henceforth, he shall be part of the Jan Suraaj family, and our full support will be to him, despite his being an Independent candidate. We want to give the BJP a taste of its own medicine."
With PTI inputs.
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