New Delhi:
The BJP announcement of seat sharing in Bihar has publicly cut out Pashupati Paras — the estranged uncle of Chirag Paswan who controls a faction of the Lok Janshakti Party — leaving him completely isolated. The 71-year-old, who three years ago appeared to hold all the cards, splitting the LJP and being rewarded with a berth in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, is now fighting for political survival.
Sources said Mr Paras will step down from the Union cabinet and his MLAs have touched base with the INDIA alliance, which a week ago, was jockeying for an alliance with Chirag Paswan. Mr Paras had warned about this last week, saying he is “free to go anywhere”.
Mr Paswan, who once described himself as devoted as “Hanuman” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has stuck to the NDA, getting only five seats of the six he aspired for. The list, however, contains Hajipur, the seat that once belonged to his late father, Ram Vilas Paswan.
Pashupati Paras, the brother of Ram Vilas Paswan, is the sitting MP from Hajipur. If he tries to hold onto the seat, he would be up against his nephew this time. Such a battle promises to be among the most-watched.
The last assembly polls in the state made it clear that the 6 per cent Paswan vote has rallied to Chirag Paswan — a situation that the BJP had factored in while dropping Pashupati Paras from the seat sharing equation.
Ram Vilas Paswan had won from Hajipur eight times, four of them being consecutive victories staring 1996.
The rest of Chirag Paswan’s list has Samastipur, Jamui, Vaishali and Khagaria — among the six seats the undivided LJP won in 2019.
The only fly in the NDA ointment could be Chirag Paswan’s strained relation with Nitish Kumar. The Chief Minister has always blamed the poor performance of his party in the 2020 assembly election to the Paswan factor.
After Pashupati Paras had split the LJP — with alleged concurrence of the BJP — Chirag Paswan had contested solo in the assembly election and split the pro-NDA votes. It had left the JD(U) compromised.
Ending up with far fewer seats than the BJP, the JD(U) had to cede the big brother position to it.
Many JD(U) leaders had privately called it a BJP move to clip Nitish Kumar’s wings and gain the upper hand in Bihar.
Since the 2020 election, Mr Kumar and Chirag Paswan have not patched up.
