Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan on Tuesday said his relations with the BJP party cannot remain “one-sided.” Hurt” at the Saffron party’s silence while he battles challenges from within his party said he will consider all possibilities about his future political steps if attempts to corner him continue, Paswan told News agency PTI.
Paswan said both he and his father Ram Vilas Paswan always stood by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the saffron party like a “rock” but BJP was not there when he expected their intervention during “difficult” times. “But if you are cornered, pushed and forced to make a decision, then the party will consider all probabilities… The LJP will have to decide its political future based on who stood by it and who did not,” he was quoted saying to PTI.
He said that it was not “appropriate” for BJP to keep mum while the JD(U) worked to “engineer” a split in the LJP. However, the Saffron party has maintained that the LJP crisis is an internal matter of the regional party.
The LPJ leader alleged that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party once again played a “visible” role in splitting his party and also has had a history of doing so. He said Kumar never wanted a Dalit leader to gain in stature and had tried to weaken his father earlier.
Pawan was removed as the party chief by a group of LP, led by his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, prompting Paswan’s loyalists to respond by stripping of LPS’ primary membership.
Chirag Paswan told “friends” from the rival RJD-Congress alliance in Bihar have reached out to him for joining them, but he said that his priority was not an alliance instead to deal with the political and legal battle with the rival group on hand.
During the Modi government, Paswan and his father had been vocal supporters on all contentious issues, be it the revocation of article 370, abolition of instant triple divorce among Muslims or the enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Pawan said he will carry out an “Aashirvad Yatra” from Hajipur in Bihar from July 5, marking the birth anniversary of his father. Ram Vilas Paswan was a Cabinet minister since the Modi government came to power in 2014 and till his death in October last year.
Chirag Paswan has asserted that over 90 percent of the party’s office-bearers are with him, while five of six LJP MPs are with Paras. Meanwhile, Paras has claimed that his faction is the real LJP and was recently elected president of the party, which Paswan rejected as “unconstitutional”. As a result, paras and four other MPs have been expelled from the party by the Paswan-leaded group.
Pashupati Kumar Paras has been recognised as the LJP leader in Lok Sabha. Paswan said that Paras’s representation as the LJP nominee will not be acceptable to him, adding it is now for the Election Commission to decide on the rival claims about which faction represents the party.
