New Delhi:

The dissent against the Uttar Pradesh government’s order to eateries to display names of owners during kanwar yatra has spread to the ruling alliance. Two Union ministers who are BJP allies have appealed to the state to roll back its decision. A third party, NItish Kumar’s Janata Dal United, has also criticised the order, calling it an example of discrimination.

After Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan — who handles the Food Processing industries portfolio at the Centre — Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary today said kanwariyas ask no-one their religion when they seek service. Neither should the matter (serving kanwariyas) be linked to any religion, he added.

“It seems that the order was taken without much thought and the government is adamant on it because the decision has been taken,” Mr Chaudhary — junior minister for education who has independent charge of skill development — was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.

“There is still time. It (roll back) should happen or the government should not put much emphasis on (implementing) it,” he added.

Mr Chaudhary also questioned if one should wear a name tag on one’s clothes to identify one’s religion. “Where all one would be made to place these identifiers! Should we now wear name tags too? So that one knows who to shake hands with?” said Mr Chaudhary, whose party has its stronghold in western Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier, Union minister Chirag Paswan had unequivocally opposed the order, saying he would “absolutely… never support or encourage” any divide in the name of caste or religion.

Another BJP ally, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), has also criticised the move. Party leader KC Tyagi has said the order should be withdrawn as it may cause communal tension. There should be no discrimination based on religion or caste, he said.

The Muzaffarnagar Police order to eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display owners’ names, has now been extended across Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The order has been hugely criticised by the Opposition parties, who maintain it targets Muslim traders.

The matter came up in the traditional all-party meet held ahead of parliament’s budget session today. The Opposition parties made it clear that this will be one of the issues that will come up during the session.

Congress leader K Suresh said the party’s senior leader Gaurav Gogoi and Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh criticised the decision at the meeting.

(With agencies)

New Delhi:

Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) President, Chirag Paswan, addressed his status as a “nepotism kid” in a podcast with news agency ANI. As the son of Ram Vilas Paswan, the founder of the undivided LJP, Mr Paswan acknowledged his privilege but also highlighted the inherent challenges of being the son of an influential political leader. 

Mr Paswan, who serves as the Union Minister of Food Processing Industries in Modi 3.0, said, “I am a nepo kid, I can’t shy away from that fact. I am proud that I am the son of Ram Vilas Paswan. For me, it is a matter of pride.”

“If you do good work, people say that it is because of your parents. So the credit is not yours. But if you do bad, then you will hear abuses. So you are always on a double-edged sword,” he added. 

Despite his privileged position as the son of a party leader, Mr Paswan claimed that his rise to the party’s leadership was not automatic. He had to prove himself, especially after the split within the LJP orchestrated by his uncle, Pashupati Paras. 

Mr Paras, Ram Vilas Paswan’s brother, was the MP from Hajipur, a constituency with a strong Paswan vote bank. However, the last assembly polls indicated that the 6 per cent Paswan vote had consolidated behind Chirag Paswan, a factor the BJP considered when excluding Pashupati Paras from the seat-sharing arrangement for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Ram Vilas Paswan had secured the Hajipur seat eight times, with four consecutive victories starting in 1996. In the 2024 polls, Chirag Paswan won the seat by over 1.7 lakh votes.

“I lost everything – the party, the symbol, the organisation, and the house we stayed in for three decades. So everything was taken away from me. I had to start from scratch; I did not even know how to make a new party,” Chirag Paswan said.

Following the LJP split, Chirag Paswan contested the 2020 Bihar assembly elections independently, fielding candidates solely against the JD(U), despite remaining within the NDA fold. He led his party’s revival through the “Ashirwad Yatra” in Bihar, ahead of the 2024 general elections. A staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Paswan’s party won all five seats it contested, making it the only NDA partner with a 100 per cent win rate. 
 

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.

New Delhi:

As the seat-sharing tussle within the NDA over Bihar continues, the INDIA alliance has made a move on the political chessboard and offered eight Lok Sabha seats in the state and two in Uttar Pradesh to Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan, sources have told NDTV. 

The proposal may prove to be tempting to Mr Paswan, who is reportedly being offered only six Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar by the NDA and even those come with a caveat – the seats will have to be split with his uncle and Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party chief Pashupati Paras, who he is not on the best terms with. 

The INDIA alliance offer, on the other hand, includes all six seats that the undivided Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) had contested in 2019, and a deal sweetener in the form of two additional constituencies in Bihar and two in Uttar Pradesh, the sources said. 

The Lok Janshakti Party had split in 2021, following a coup by Mr Paras a year after the death of party chief and veteran leader Ram Vilas Paswan.

Mr Paswan was the brother of Mr Paras and father of Chirag Paswan. After Mr Paras was given a cabinet berth by the BJP-led NDA, Chirag Paswan had attacked the Janata Dal United and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He had, however, refrained from targeting the BJP and PM Narendra Modi – whom he had earlier called his Ram and said he was his Hanuman.

Having quit the NDA in 2020 over differences with Mr Kumar, Chirag Paswan had rejoined the alliance last year, when the Bihar chief minister was a part of the Mahagathbandhan, which includes the Lalu Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. Tensions have reportedly been bubbling under the surface ever since the JDU chief returned to the NDA earlier this year. 

There are also differences between Mr Paswan and Mr Paras over the latter’s Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency. While Mr Paras is the sitting MP from the seat, Mr Paswan has sought to stake claim to it because it was his late father’s former constituency and his “karmabhoomi”.

Seat Division

The BJP and the JDU had fought 17 Lok Sabha seats each in Bihar in 2019 and the six remaining constituencies had been contested by the LJP. The BJP and the LJP had won all the seats they had contested and the JDU had fallen short only in Kishanganj, which it had lost to the Congress. 

The bigger partners in the NDA are reportedly keen on repeating the same arrangement, leaving Mr Paras and Mr Paswan’s party to work out an understanding over the six seats the LJP had contested the last time.

For the Bihar Mahagathbandhan, however, 17 seats – which would have otherwise gone to the JDU – have been opened up. This has left them the room to manoeuvre and try and rope in Mr Paswan’s party.

If the move does work out, it will be a boost to the INDIA alliance, which has faced trouble in finalising seat-sharing in several states, including West Bengal and Punjab. Bihar, with its 40 seats, sends the fourth-highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha and the INDIA alliance is fancying its chances of giving pause to the NDA juggernaut after the 39-1 rout it had faced its chances.

The blow to the NDA and the JDU could also act as a salve for the INDIA bloc, which is still smarting from Mr Kumar’s fresh volte-face in January.