At 25, LSR graduate Sambhavi Choudhary youngest Dalit woman to contest Lok Sabha polls (2024)

Sambhavi Choudhary told The Indian Express: “I am simply overwhelmed with the honour of being given chance to contest Lok Sabha polls at the age of 25. It also gives me a sense of huge responsibility, especially because of my political background and high benchmark set by by father and grandfather. I am also alive to great contributions of my father-in-law Acharya Kishore Kunal, who had pioneered social reform by introducing Dalit priests to Bihar temples years ago.”

Sambhavi was pursuing her doctorate on “intersectionality of gender and caste in Bihar politics” after completing her masters in sociology from the Delhi School of Economics. Sambhavi did her graduation from the Lady Shri Ram College. She is married to Saayan Kunal, son of philanthropist and scholar Acharya Kishore Kunal, a former IPS officer, who is credited with appointing a number of Dalit priests in temples in Bihar.

The then prime minister V P Singh appointed Kunal an officer on special duty to mediate between Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Babri Masjid Action Committee. The Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya also referred to Kishore Kunal’s book Ayodhya Revisited. After taking voluntary retirement from IPS, he became Vice-Chancellor of KSD Sanskrit University, Darbhanga in Bihar in 2001.

The party’s list features Veena Devi as the only sitting MP to get a ticket from Vaishali while old-time party worker and businessman-turned-politician Rajesh Verma was given a ticket from Khagaria. Verma, a former Bhagalpur deputy mayor, has been active in politics for over a decade. He had contested in the 2020 Assembly polls from LJP but lost.

An MBA graduate, Arun Bharati, who is married to Chirag’s elder sister Nisha Paswan, has been active in politics over the last 15 years.

Chirag has taken on himself the task of winning the battle in Hajipur, a seat represented by his father Ram Vilas Paswan nine times and has the distinction of winning with a record margin twice. Though it was expected that the Hajipur contest would be between Chirag and his estranged uncle and sitting Hajipur MP Pashupati Kumar Paras, there is no word yet on Paras either being fielded by RJD or contesting from his own party. In the 2019 polls, LJP had won all six seats contested.

On Saturday, former Union minister Paras made it clear he will “continue to support the NDA” in the Lok Sabha polls but fell short of calling truce with nephew Chirag. Paras in a statement on X, tagging Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J P Nadda and the party’s Bihar in-charge Vinod Tawde, wrote, “Our Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party is a part of NDA and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is our leader.” Paras said Modi’s “decision is supreme for us. Our full support will be there to ensure that the NDA crosses the 400-mark and wins all 40 seats in Bihar”.

The NDA, finalising the Bihar seat-sharing deal for the Lok Sabha polls on March 19, had allotted five seats to the Chirag Paswan-led party and one each to Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM). In 2019, the BJP, JD(U) and LJP together garnered 53% of the votes polled in the state.

With PTI inputs