Mr Paras was non-committal on talk of a deal with the opposition – either with the state-level Congress-RJD alliance or with national-level INDIA bloc led by the Congress.
Union Minister Pashupati Paras announced his resignation Tuesday morning and withdrew his Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party from the BJP-led national alliance. This comes a day after the BJP confirmed a seat-share deal with the Lok Janshakti Party of Mr Paras’ nephew, Chirag Paswan.
The BJP-LJP deal – part of a broader arrangement within Bihar for next month’s Lok Sabha election – sees Mr Paras’ party completely sidelined; the RLJP was given zero seats while Mr Paswan’s LJP was allotted five, including the Hajipur constituency won by his uncle in the 2019 election.
“The NDA (the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance) deal has been announced. I am grateful to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). My party and I faced injustice. So I am resigning as minister.”
Mr Paras was non-committal on talk of a deal with the opposition – either with the state-level Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance or with national-level INDIA bloc led by the Congress.
He has, however, already confirmed his RLJP will contest the Hajipur seat.
Pashupati Paras “Free To Go Anywhere”
Last week – amid reports the BJP had finished its Bihar deals, and that he had been frozen out – Mr Paras said his RLJP and its five MPs, including himself, would contest the seats they won in the last election and the party itself is “free to go anywhere”, leading to talk of a deal within the opposition.
Mr Paras won Hajipur five years ago as a member of the then-undivided Lok Janshakti Party. It was led then by party founder and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who was Chirag Paswan’s father.
The elder Paswan – who died in October 2020 – was an eight-time MP from Hajipur, which has never been won by the BJP.
BJP Sides With Nephew, Dumps Uncle
That the national party has opted to side with the faction of the LJP led by Chirag Paswan underlines the belief that he now has complete command over the community vote.
The Paswans account for around six per cent of the voting population in Bihar.
The only problem for the BJP could be that Mr Paswan and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) – the other major partner in the state alliance – don’t really get along.