A BJP leader, Ashwani Kumar Choubey, wants Shahnawaz Hussain, the party's best known Muslim face, should contest from Muslim-dominated Kishanganj, not from Hindu-majority Bhagalpur.The former Bihar minister, a vocal supporter of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, made the request while speaking to the media in Bhagalpur.Choubey, a BJP legislator from Bhagalpur, said party leaders from the minority community should be fielded from constituencies where there was a sizeable population of Muslims "in the larger interest of the party"."It is better if Shahnawaz Hussain, the MP from Bhagalpur, should contest from Kishanganj. The party must field a candidate from the majority community in Bhagalpur," he said.
Choubey raised this issue last month too but party leaders in the state and at the national level ignored it.According to BJP leaders in Bhagalpur, Choubey, who does not talk to Hussain, is keen to contest from Bhagalpur.In 2004, Hussain was defeated from Kishanganj although Muslims make up more than 66.7 percent of the voters there. He had won from there in 1999.