Pappu Yadav likely to join Cong in first week of November

New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS) Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) chief Pappu Yadav is likely to join the Congress in the first week of November.

According to sources in the Congress, talks of former MP Pappu Yadav joining the party are in final stages. Congress' Bihar in-charge, Bhakta Charan Das, told IANS that he has not personally spoken to Pappu Yadav in this regard and the talks are taking place at the state level.

However, according to sources, Pappu Yadav first wants to merge the JAP with the Congress. A proposal was made by the Congress to merge Pappu Yadav's party with it, following which talks are in the final stages now. However, the conditions he will place before officially joining the Congress are yet to be decided. Earlier, the JAP chief had given clear indications to support the Congress during the upcoming by-elections in Bihar.

According to sources, Pappu Yadav will visit Delhi in the first week of November to meet former Congress President Rahul Gandhi. After this, a formal announcement of him joining the party will be made.

Kanhaiya Kumar, a prominent leader in Bihar from the Communist Party of India, recently joined the Congress. He has been assigned the official responsibility of campaigning for the party in several states of the country.

Pappu Yadav's wife Ranjit Ranjan has been an MP from Supaul in Bihar. At present, she is a Congress national secretary. Ranjit has been made an election observer for the Kusheshwar Asthan consituency in the upcoming by-elections.

Ranjan is currently campaigning for the Congress candidate in Kusheshwar Asthan, while her husband Pappu Yadav is campaigning for JAP candidate Yogi Choupal. After Pappu Yadav was sent to jail, her wife had targeted the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar.