Janata Dal-United MP Devesh Chandra Thakur has fuelled a major controversy with his remarks that he will not accept requests for help from Muslim and Yadav communities because they didn’t vote for him in the Sitamarhi Lok Sabha election.
Thakur, who won the Sitamarhi seat with a 51,000 margin over the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) Arjun Rai, said he had helped people from the two communities. But when it came to voting in elections, Thakur asserted the two communities did not vote for him because of the party’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“If Muslims and Yadavs did not vote for the Arrow (JD-U’s poll symbol) just because they saw the face of Narendra Modi when they saw our poll symbol… When someone comes to me from these communities, I can also see the face of Lalu Prasad and the Lantern (RJD symbol) on their face… It takes two to clap,” he said in an interview to HT.
“For any work concerning the society at large, they are welcome, but not for any personal work,” he added.
Thakur said it was a point he had been making in his speeches during his tour of the constituency to thank people for electing him. Besides the victory, Thakur has been disappointed about a drop in his vote share and votes.
Thakur secured 515,719 votes (47.14% vote share) and beat RJD’s Arjun Rai with a margin of 51,000.
While, Sunil Kumar Pintu of the JD-U, who last won the Sitamarhi seat, secured 567,745 votes (54.65% vote share) in 2019, defeating Arjun Rai with a margin of 250,000 votes.
“Some people will do the same but not say so, I have openly said it, as I discovered during an analysis of the decline in the victory margin,” Thakur added.
