RJD leader, convicted by CBI court, joins BJP

Patna | Former RJD leader Anil Sahani, who was disqualified from the Bihar assembly three years ago after a CBI court convicted him in a fraud case, joined the BJP here on Wednesday.

Sahani was inducted into the saffron party in the presence of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the party's in-charge for assembly polls, and national general secretary Vinod Tawde.

The CBI court in Delhi had held him guilty of submitting forged air tickets in 2012 when the RJD leader was a Rajya Sabha MP, to avail Leave Travel Concession without having undertaken the journeys.

The induction of Sahni could be seen as an attempt by the BJP to reach out to 'Nishad' community, an extremely backward class which has a sizeable presence in his home district of Muzaffarpur.

Sahani had won the 2020 assembly elections from Kurhani, defeating BJP’s Kedar Gupta by a margin of less than 900 votes.

Gupta later won the bypoll held after Sahani’s disqualification and became a minister.