The RJD, in its meeting under the chairmanship of Tejashvi Yadav, was seen using posters of RJD leader and dreaded gangster and convicted criminal, Mohammad Shahabuddin, on Wednesday. The photographs and posters are clearly visible in the meeting, which was of the party's minority cell and being held in Patna

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Convicted Gangster for Political mileage 

The poster of the RJD sees Shahabuddin being placed front and centre, clearly indicating that the party intends to leverage him and that he still figures in their political plans, despite having been convicted on charges of murder as well as various other charges for which he is lodged in jail. The use of the former Siwan MP's face in such a poster also comes with little over a year to go before the assembly elections in Bihar.

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Debarred from Elections

RJD's Mohammad Shahabuddin was elected four times from Siwan, Bihar and was elected twice as MLA, to the Bihar Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly). Eventually, after being convicted in many criminal cases, he was debarred from contesting the 2009 general elections.

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Bihar Lok Sabha election results

The RJD faces an uphill task in next year's assembly elections if this year's Lok Sabha polls are anything to go by. The party, which went into the elections in alliance with the Congress, was utterly decimated, with the JD(U)-BJP alliance managing to win all but one of the 40 seats on offer. Since then, there have been numerous veiled overtures by the RJD to tempt CM Nitish Kumar to leave the NDA and re-forge the Mahagathbandhan that had defeated BJP in the 2015 elections by a significant margin. The RJD had emerged the single-largest party in the state in those polls, though their alliance with the JD(U) ended prematurely.

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