Chirag Paswan side-lined within party, his uncle comes to fore

New Delhi: Five of the six Lok Janshakti Party MPs in the Lok Sabha have joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected his paternal uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras in his place, causing a big stir in Bihar politics.

Paras on Monday 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.

Paras, MP from Hajipur reacted to the media he has not broken the party but saved it. 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 said 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.

There has been no comment from Paswan on the issue.

Soon after Paras spoke to the media, Paswan drove to his uncle's residence in the national capital to meet him. Paswan's cousin and MP Prince Raj also stays at the same address.

After spending over 90 minutes at the residence of Paras and Prince Raj, Paswan left without saying a word to the waiting media persons.

It is believed that neither of the two rebel MPs met him. A household help said the two were not at home when the LJP chief arrived.

Quoting sources, a TI report said that the rebel group, which includes MPs Raj, Chandan Singh, Veena Devi and Mehboob Ali Kaiser, has long been unhappy with Chirag Paswan's style of functioning. The LJP president has now been left virtually isolated at the top after taking on the mantle following his father Ram Vilas Paswan's death in 2020.

Sources close to him have blamed the JD(U) for the split, saying the party had long been working to isolate the LJP president after his decision to go all out against Chief Minister Kumar in the 2020 assembly polls.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), which bore the brunt of Chirag Paswan's brinkmanship in the assembly polls last year, on Monday said the LJP president was reaping what he had sown.

Reacting with a sense of vindication to the developments in the party, JD(U) national president RCP Singh said that Paswan who was heading a party that was with the NDA adopted a stance that damaged it in the assembly polls.

"This led to a sense of unease within his own party," Singh reacted

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)".