Patna, (Samajweekly) Five MPs including two Union ministers and a number of party MLAs, MLCs and other workers welcomed new Bihar BJP chief Samrat Chaudhary at Patna airport on Monday afternoon.
Union MoS Home Nityanand Rai, Union minister Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, Ravishankar Prasad, national vice president Radha Mohan Singh, former state president and MP Sanjay Jaiswal, Leader of Opposition in the Bihar assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha, Bhikhubhai Dalsania, Rituraj Sinha, Mangal Pandey, Shahnawaz Hussain and many other leaders stood in a queue at Patna airport with bouquets to welcome Samrat Chaudhary.
Sources said that the BJP high command directed the Bihar leaders to give a huge welcome to the newly appointed state president.
The distance between Patna airport and the BJP office is 5 km but the cavalcade took more than two and a half hours to reach there. Chaudhary was travelling in an open vehicle and BJP supporters welcomed him at more than a dozen places.
Samrat Chaudhary is said to be the choice of Union home minister Amit Shah. He has given full authority to Chaudhary to develop a sound structure of the party in Bihar.
Chaudhary belongs to the Kushwaha community which is considered as the core vote bank of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. The BJP wants to cut into this vote bank in the Lok Sabha 2024 and Vidhan Sabha election 2025.
Bihar is crucial for the BJP to decide its fate in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The party has to perform well in Bihar to retain power at the Centre. Last time, the BJP had won 17 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2019. At that time, the JD-U was part of the NDA.
Sources said that the BJP may contest assembly election 2025 on the face of Samrat Chaudhary. This will impact the performance of the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in all the 40 seats of the state. Chaudhary has already announced that his party will win all the 40 seats in Bihar.
