Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, October 4
Telephonic calls from the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday morning failed to persuade LJP president Chirag Paswan who announced parliamentary board decision to contest 143 out of 243 assembly constituencies in Bihar.
The LJP decided to snap ties with JDU led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar but said it would not field candidates against the BJP nominees, indicating it would continue to be in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The three top leaders individually telephoned Chirag and inquired about the health of his father Ram Vilas Paswan, who underwent a heart surgery on Saturday evening.
Chirag has made it categorical; leadership of Nitish was not acceptable to the LJP. BJP leaders in their statements and speeches have repeatedly said Nitish was their leader during the elections.
Paswan had snapped ties with the Congress just before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and joined NDA. In 2015, it was part of the BJP led alliance during the assembly elections, when JDU was allied with RJD.
Chirag was not even on talking terms with the chief minister for the last six months. CM had also not responded to his letters sent during the Lockdown period suggesting ration cards for migrant labourers and on other issues. Chirag himself had regretted CM was ignoring him. Last week, at the press conference in the JDU office, CM had dismissed with contempt a question on Chirag Paswan.
Relations between the two were strained for the last few months. Chirag on Friday had alleged the Seven resolves (Saat Nischay) of the chief minister launched during his alliance with Lalu Prasad was a fraud and all programmes were marked with corruption. There was no improvement in the condition in the rural areas, he had alleged.
In the 2015 elections, LJP had contested on 43 seats, but its two candidates were successful and the party polled 0.82 per cent votes.
In the February, 2005 assembly elections, LJP had secured 29 seats and Paswan claimed that he held the keys to the new government. RJD got only 78 seats, BJP in alliance with Nitish Kumar’s JDU got 39 and 55 seats. Nitish was sworn in as chief minister, but Paswan declined support to him leading to collapse of Nitish led government in six days only.
LJP decision to field its candidates against the JDU nominees would definitely boost the electoral prospects of the BJP candidates and BJP cadre would work for success of the LJP nominees and prevent JDU from emerging as Big Brother in Bihar NDA.
There would be no impact on the future of Ram Vilas Paswan and he would continue in the Union cabinet as the alliance in Bihar had been snapped with JDU. In neighbouring Jharkhand during the last assembly elections, JDU and LJP candidates had contested against each other.
