Patna: The Grand Alliance has suffered another major setback in the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections. The nomination of Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) candidate and current MLA Shashi Bhushan Singh has been cancelled. He was scheduled to contest the Supauli Assembly seat on behalf of the Grand Alliance, but his nomination was not accepted due to a technical error.
Ignoring Rules In Nominations Was Reason
Vikasheel Insaan Party is currently a registered but unrecognized party. According to Election Commission rules, a candidate from such a party requires the signatures of at least 10 proposers when filing nomination papers. However, Shashi Bhushan Singh, believing he was the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate, filed his nomination with only one proposer.
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This omission was discovered during scrutiny of the nomination papers, and his nomination was subsequently rejected. This resulted in the Grand Alliance losing a strong seat without contesting, as Shashi Bhushan Singh was considered a popular face in the region.
RJD Rebel Om Prakash Choudhary’s Nomination Also Rejected
RJD rebel Om Prakash Choudhary had also filed his nomination from the same seat, but the Election Commission rejected his nomination as well. According to the Commission, Choudhary had left several pages of his nomination form incomplete, lacking the necessary information. This, again a technical error, disqualified him from the electoral race.
Direct Contest Between LJP (Ram Vilas) and Jan Suraj Party
With the withdrawal of these two candidates, the contest for the Supaul Assembly seat has narrowed down to a direct contest between Rajesh Kumar alias Bablu Gupta of the LJP (Ram Vilas) and Ajay Jha of the Jan Suraj Party. The LJP (Ram Vilas) has the support of the NDA, while the Jan Suraj Party is emerging as a new political force led by Prashant Kishore.
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Last Election Mathematics
It is noteworthy that in the last Assembly elections, Shashi Bhushan Singh won the election on a VIP ticket, securing 65,267 votes, defeating Ramchandra Sahni by 3,447 votes. Sahni had received 61,820 votes in that election. Consequently, the withdrawal of Shashi Bhushan Singh this time is being seen as a political loss for the Grand Alliance.
A small oversight in the Bihar election nomination process is having a significant impact. Both VIP and RJD had to concede defeat in the crucial seat of Sugauli before the election even began. It will be interesting to see who wins this seat between Chirag Paswan’s party and Prashant Kishore’s party.