Patna, May 16 (IANS) Four prominent criminal-turned-politicians of Bihar were barred from this Lok Sabha contest by courts. They put up their wives instead. Counting trends Saturday showed all four wives were trailing.
Jailed RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin’s wife Heena Sahab, contesting from Siwan constituency as an RJD candidate, was trailing behind independent candidate Om Prakash Yadav.

Ranjeeta Ranjan, the wife of Pappu Yadav, was trailing behind Janata Dal-United (JD-U)’s Vishwa Mohan Kumar in Supaul. A sitting MP from Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Ranjeeta Ranjan had switched parties before polls and joined the Congress, which fielded her from Supaul.

Veena Devi, wife of LJP MP Surajbhan Singh, was trailing behind the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Bhola Singh in Nawada constituency.

Lovely Anand, the wife of former JD-U MP Anand Mohan and a former MP herself, was trailing behind BJP’s Rama Devi in Sheohar constituency where she was the Congress candidate.

All the four husbands had been disallowed by the courts from contesting, with the pleas for suspension of their conviction in criminal cases rejected by the courts. All four were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in different cases.

The four are among a dozen politicians, including MPs and legislators, who have been convicted and sentenced by fast track courts in Bihar after 2005, thus becoming ineligible to contest. Anyone convicted for a crime and sentenced to more than a two-year-long jail term cannot fight elections until six years after the completion of his sentence.