Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) founder Ramvilas Paswan’s son and Jamui MP Chirag Paswan, whose party had split a year after the death of his father in 2020, will campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the bypolls for two assembly seats of Mokama and Gopalganj in Bihar, state BJP president Dr Sanjay Jaiswal said on Friday in an announcement that “surprised” Chirag’s party.
“We treat all parties that fought elections in alliance with us and supported us in the Presidential polls as NDA partners as allies. Chirag Paswan very much fits the bill and he will be campaigning on October 31 and November 1,” Jaiswal said.
Chirag Paswan heads the Lok Janshakti Party (RV) and is its lone member of Parliament (MP). His party is currently not a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
His uncle and union minister Pashupati Paras heads the other faction, LJP (Nationalist), which has five MPs. Paras has already announced support to BJP candidates.
In 2020 Bihar assembly polls, the undivided LJP had fielded candidates against chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and is said to have damaged the latter’s prospects in no less than 30 seats.
JD(U), which parted ways with BJP in August, had mentioned the “Chirag model” used by the saffron party to weaken Nitish Kumar’s party as one of the reasons to severe ties.
Chirag himself was not immediately available for comment, but his party leaders expressed surprise over the announcement made by Jaiswal. “As of today, we are neither with NDA nor with GA. A call on this, including campaigning for the BJP, will be taken by Chirag Paswan on Saturday when he reaches Patna,” said LJP (RV) state president Raju Tiwary.
Meanwhile, Jaiswal also alleged that former MLA from Mokama Anant Singh, whose wife is RJD candidate from the same seat, was trying to intimidate voters by making calls to them.
Jaiswal, a Lok Sabha member, also said his party would be filing a petition in the Patna High Court, seeking the cancellation of the nomination of Mohan Gupta, the RJD candidate in Gopalganj where by-election has been necessitated by the death of Subhash Singh, a four-term MLA belonging to the saffron party.
“We recently submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission highlighting that Gupta has concealed information relating to a case of liquor smuggling lodged against him in Jharkhand. His candidature in election in a dry state is scandalous. The EC, however, did not act on our complaint. So we will move the court when it reopens on November 1,” the BJP leader said.
Sale and consumption of liquor is banned in Bihar since April 2016.
