Shooter Shreyasi Singh wins for BJP in Bihar election debut

Former ace shooter Shreyasi Singh on Tuesday made a successful electoral debut on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket, fighting over the Jamui assembly seat from sitting RJD MLA Vijay Prakash.

Singh, who is a Commonwealth Games gold medallist shooter, defeated Prakash by a huge margin of more than 41,000 votes. She polled 79,156 votes, while Prakash, who has represented the seat more than once, bagged only 38,147. The 27-year-old is the daughter of former Union minister Digivijay Singh, an old associate of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with whom he fell apart towards the end of his life. Her mother Putul Kumari had won Banka Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket in 2014.

Notably, Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan, who had pulled out of the NDA just ahead of the assembly polls, had congratulated Singh upon her decision to take the political plunge and declared full support of his party cadre.

If there is one victory you should look at today, it should be of Shreyasi Singh from Jamui seat in Bihar.

She defeated sitting RJD MLA with 40,000 votes.

This was her debut in politics with BJP ticket. Earlier, she had made the country proud with gold medal in CWG 2018. pic.twitter.com/hM47voqQt6

— An Open Letter 😷 (@AnOpenLetter001) November 10, 2020

Vijay Prakash was two-time MLA from Jamui. He won Jamui seat for the RJD twice — 2005 and 2015. In the last assembly election held in 2015, the RJD leader had defeated BJP's Ajoy Pratap by over 8,000 votes. Vijay Prakash had got 66577 votes with 42.24 vote share whereas Ajoy Pratap could manage to get just 58328 votes with just 37.01 per cent vote share.

The Jamui assembly constituency is in Jamui district of Bihar. It comes under Jamui Lok Sabha constituency, currently held by Chirag Paswan of LJP. Chirag, two-time MP from Jamui, has extended his support to BJP candidate Shreyasi Singh.

The LJP chief walked out of NDA just weeks before the election but continued to support the BJP in the state as well as in the Centre. In the last general election held in 2019, Chirag Paswan defeated Bhudeo Choudhary of RSLP by over 2.4 lakh votes. In Jamui, the contest would be between Shreyasi Singh and Vijay Praksh Yadav of RJD.

Also read: 10 Indian cricketers who turned politicians