Hena Sahab, Shahabuddin’s wife, returns to RJD

Hena Shahab and son join RJD, strengthening party's Muslim vote bank in Bihar ahead of Assembly elections.

Hena Shahab, the wife of late gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin, and her son Osama, on Sunday (October 27, 2024) joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the presence of party supremo Lalu Prasad and Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Tejaswhi Yadav in Patna.

Ever since she contested this year’s Lok Sabha election as an Independent candidate from Siwan, the RJD wanted Ms. Hena to return to the party keeping next year’s Assembly elections in mind. Though she lost the polls, Ms. Hena came second and got more votes than the RJD candidate Awadh Bihari Choudhary. She polled 2,93,651 votes against Mr. Choudhary’s 1,98,823 votes. The Janata Dal (United)‘s Vijay Laxmi Kushwaha won the election.

Sources in the party said that there was pressure from Muslim MLAs of the RJD to welcome Ms. Hena into the fold. A senior leader said that her return will strengthen the party’s core vote bank in Siwan and surrounding districts of Gopalganj and Saran. The party may benefit in the Seemanchal region where 70% of the population is Muslim.

“The family of late Shahabuddin was never far from us and today his family has come closer to us,” Mr. Prasad said. He gave the inductees the RJD membership receipt, party’s symbol, cap and a copy of his biography.

Shahabuddin was very close to Mr. Prasad and was seen as the most important leader of the Muslim-Yadav combination. Banking on this vote bank, Mr. Prasad ruled Bihar for 15 years as Muslims voted for the RJD in Siwan and its neighbouring districts.

Shahabuddin had played an important role in establishing the political dominance of the party but after his death in COVID in May 2021, while serving a life sentence in a double murder case in Tihar jail, the RJD maintained a distance from his wife.

No one from Mr. Prasad’s family had attended his funeral in Delhi. However, Mr. Tejashwi attended the wedding of Shahabuddin’s son Osama in October 2021. On August 7, Mr. Prasad and Mr. Tejashwi held a closed-door meeting for an hour with Ms. Hena at the residence of RJD MLC Vinod Jaiswal to make amends after she was ignored by the party for the Lok Sabha election.