Lok Janshakti Party MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, the lone Muslim to have been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday, in a shot in the arm for the opposition party amid the elections.
Kaiser, who sided with former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras when the latter split the LJP, and was denied a ticket this time by Chirag Paswan despite efforts to seek rapprochement, joined the RJD in the presence of its leader Tejashwi Yadav.
"Kaiser-saheb is joining us after a meeting with party president Lalu Prasad-ji. We stand to gain from his experience. It is a development that will send across a strong message in favour of our fight to protect the Constitution, which is facing threat from the ruling dispensation," said Yadav.
Born into the family that ruled the erstwhile princely state of Simri Bakhtiyarpur in Saharsa district, Kaiser started his political career with the Congress and headed the party's state unit till 2013.
He joined the LJP in 2014 and won the Khagaria seat, which he retained five years later.
His relations with Chirag Paswan, the then LJP president, began to sour when the party denied a ticket to his son Yusuf Salahuddin in the 2020 assembly polls.
Salahuddin went on to contest and win the Simri Bakhtiyarpur seat on an RJD ticket.
It was not immediately known whether the RJD, which has announced candidates for all but one of the 23 Lok Sabha seats it is contesting, will be fielding Kaiser in the ongoing elections.
