'He has reaped what he had sown': JDU takes dig at Chirag Paswan after LJP MPs elect Pashupati Kumar Paras as their new leader

Pashupati Kumar Paras asserted that 99 per cent of LJP workers were unhappy with the turn of events in Bihar as Chirag Paswan led his party against the JD(U) and fared poorly in the 2020 assembly polls.

Patna: Five of the six Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) MPs on Monday joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected his paternal uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras as the leader of the parliamentary party in Lok Sabha, causing a big churn in Bihar politics.

Paras, the new LJP leader, had earlier lauded Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a ''good leader'' and "vikas purush" (development-oriented man), highlighting the deep fault lines within the party as his nephew Chirag Paswan has been a strong critic of the JD(U) president. " I have not broken the party but saved it," Paras, MP from Hajipur, told reporters.

He asserted that 99 per cent of LJP workers were unhappy with the turn of events in Bihar as Chirag Paswan led his party against the JD(U) and fared poorly in the 2020 assembly polls.

Paras also said that his group will continue to be part of the BJP-led NDA, and said Chirag Paswan can remain part of the organisation. The group of five MPs has conveyed their decision of electing Paras as the LJP leader in Lok Sabha to the Speaker.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party Janata Dal-United (JD-U), which bore the brunt of Chirag Paswan's brinkmanship in the assembly polls last year, said that the "young LJP president was reaping what he had sown.''

JD(U) national president RCP Singh reacted with a sense of vindication to the developments in the party founded by late Ram Vilas Paswan, whose son has been left cornered in a revolt led by the former's younger brother Pashupati Kumar Paras and supported by four other MPs, including nephew Prince Raj.

"It is a well-known adage that as you sow, so shall you reap. Chirag Paswan was heading a party which was with the NDA. Yet, he adopted a stance that damaged it in the assembly polls. This led to a sense of unease within his own party," Singh told reporters.

Chirag Paswan had opened a front against Nitish Kumar in the elections, fielding nominees against all JD(U) candidates, many of them rebels from the BJP.  He had claimed that he wanted to help the saffron party form its own government in the state where the people yearned for a change in leadership.

Although the NDA managed to secure a majority and Kumar was backed for another term, the JD(U) ended up with a much smaller tally, conceding the upper hand to the BJP, which now has the lion's share in the council of ministers in Bihar. 

Asked about the praise showered on Nitish Kumar by Pashupati Kumar Paras, who represents the Hajipur seat from where Ram Vilas Paswan was elected for most of his career, Singh said "he was a minister in the state cabinet until he got elected to Parliament. We shared extremely cordial relations".

The JD(U) chief also remarked that Chirag was "too young" and had failed to keep his flock together in the LJP, which owed its current standing, in a large measure, to "efforts put in by Pashupati Kumar Paras and Ram Chandra Paswan (Prince Raj's late father)". 

Singh, however, parried queries as to whether the rebel LJP MPs would be welcome if they expressed the wish to join JD(U). "Many formalities are to be completed. The five MPs who have revolted need to be notified as an independent group by the Lok Sabha Speaker. They have already stated they will remain in the NDA.

"In any case, in Bihar NDA, it is only the BJP and our party. Whichever party they join, they will be with us," he said. He declined to comment on speculations about one or more rebel LJP MPs being inducted into the Union Cabinet from JD(U) quota or getting accommodated in the state ministry but reiterated his stand that all NDA allies ought to get a "respectable" share at the Centre.

The developments in the LJP come barely three months after its lone MLA Raj Kumar Singh crossed over to the JD(U) upon being pulled up for voting in favour of Maheshwar Hazari, the NDA candidate for deputy speaker's post.

Singh had quit the LJP protesting the reproach from the leadership and asserting that he had supported the NDA candidate in line with the party's earlier stance of backing Vijay Kumar Sinha, the alliance's nominee, as Speaker. Notably, while Sinha belongs to the BJP, Hazari is from the JD(U).