Nikhil Kumar laments denial of Congress ticket from

Veteran Congress leader Nikhil Kumar on Sunday expressed his anguish over denial of a chance to contest from the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, which has been represented by his family many times, and wondered why RJD supremo Lalu Prasad insisted that it be given to former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhis Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).

"I am confident that I would have won Aurangabad for 'Mahagathbandhan' (Grand Alliance) this time. But at the insistence of Lalu Prasad, we had to concede the seat to HAM. In the interest of my party and the alliance, of which it is a part, I would not like to say more on the issue till elections are over," Kumar told reporters here.

A former Delhi Police Commissioner, Kumar had won the seat in 2004 general elections while his wife Shyama Singh was the MP in the previous Lok Sabha. His father Satyendra Narayan Sinha, who served as chief minister of Bihar for a brief period in the 1980s, had represented the seat several times on the trot.

Nikhil Kumar had fought from the seat in 2014, but was beaten by BJPs Sushil Kumar Singh by a margin of about 66,000 votes.

The JD(U), headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and an ally of the BJP, also said that "injustice" was done to the bureaucrat-turned-politician.

"This is unjust. Such treatment should not have been meted out to Nikhil Kumar whose familys contribution to Aurangabad is immense," JD(U) national general secretary Ram Chandra Prasad Singh said.

Hailing from an aristocratic family of Aurangabad, Nikhil Kumar is the grandson of Anugrah Narayan Singh, the first deputy chief minister of Bihar and a close aide of first president Dr Rajendra Prasad.

Aurangabad goes to polls in the first phase of elections. HAM candidate Upendra Prasad will be taking on the sitting MP who has been again fielded by the NDA from the seat.