Youths wave black flags at Shatrughan in Patna, get beaten up

Black flags were shown at Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from the Patna Saheb, Shatrughan Sinha on Friday by a group of youths who were beaten up by the actor-politician's supporters. A few youths claiming themselves to members of non-governmental organisation "Lokhit Vikas Manch" waved black flags at Sinha at Kargil Chowk as he was going to file his nomination for the Lok Sabha elections.

City Superintendent of Police Jaykant told PTI that it was "a skirmish". Though Sinha did not comment on the incident, which occurred for the second consecutive day, BJP members of Legislative Assembly, Nitin Navin and Prem Ranjan Patel, who accompanied him described it as the "handiwork" of political rivals.

"Most of the protestors were young and when asked the reason for showing black flags did not comment," Navin told PTI. Patel alleged that the protesters appeared to be drunk. On Thursday a group had protested Sinha's re-nomination from Patna Saheb seat during his visit to the BJP office and were thrashed by BJP supporters. 

A complaint was registered with the Kotwali police station for on Thursday assault, Kotwali station house officer, Alok Kumar said. The complainants had named Sinha and his supporters for the assault, Kumar said.

Sinha popularly known as 'Bihari Babu', incidentally, had been opposed by a section of leaders in BJP. There were reports that senior BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad wished to contest from Patna Saheb. Due to resistance, the candidature of Sinha, who had served as cabinet minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, was earlier put on hold and his ticket was approved only in the second lot for Bihar.

Sinha would face Bhojpuri actor Kunal Singh of Congress, former Bihar minister and AAP leader Parveen Amanullah and the Janata Dal-United's Gopal Prasad Sinha on April 17.