Two warring factions of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) clashed on Wednesday with Jamui MP Chirag Paswan blaming the Janata Dal (United) for the crisis and his uncle and Hajipur MP Pashupati Kumar Paras saying he was ready for a legal fight to establish control over the party.
Speaking for the first time since the crisis erupted on Sunday night, Paswan targeted Paras for non-cooperation. The 38-year-old leader also wrote to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, requesting him to reconsider his decision, taken on Monday, to recognise Paras as the head of the LJP parliamentary party, replacing Paswan.
“ I did not become an orphan when my father passed away. But now I feel like an orphan,” said Paswan in Delhi, referring to the death of his father and former Union minister Ram Vilas Pawan in October last year.
“I wanted the family matter to be settled in a closed room, But now this fight will go on for a long time and will be fought legally. I am the son of a lion. I had fought before and will fight again,” he added.
In Patna, Paras hit back and accused Paswan of violating the party’s constitution by holding three posts – national president, chairman of parliamentary board and parliamentary party chief.
“If there is a long fight, fight it, go to the Supreme Court. We wanted NDA (National Democratic Alliance) to fight the elections with the BJP but it did not happen. There was no alliance. Everyone lost. This was the anger among the people. We are saying that LJP is ours, rest court will tell,” he said, referring to Paswan’s decision to contest the assembly election alone and take on the JD(U).
The crisis began late on Sunday, when five LJP Lok Sabha members rebelled against Paswan and replaced him with Paras. The lawmakers met Birla on Sunday night and again on Monday, when the Lok Sabha secretariat issued a notification recognising Paras as the parliamentary party chief. During the day, Paswan drove to Paras’s residence in Delhi but was made to wait outside the house for 15 minutes and returned without meeting his uncle.
On Tuesday, the rebels removed Paswan as the party chief and appointed Suraj Bhan Singh as working president. Almost immediately, Paswan’s faction met in Patna and stripped all five rebels of their party membership. The feud is now likely headed to the Election Commission.
Relations between Paras and Paswan nosedived when LJP decided to contest against the BJP-JD(U) alliance despite being in the NDA and Paswan accused Kumar of misgovernance and corruption. During the campaign, Paras praised Kumar but was forced to retract his comment, an incident that led to a bitter faceoff between the two.
On Wednesday, Paswan blamed the JD (U) for engineering the virtual split, saying that Bihar’s ruling party first split the Dalits and Mahadalits and then the LJP. “They want to divide and rule,” he said.
He also wrote to Birla, requesting him to issue a new circular favouring the younger leader. “Since Article 26 of the constitution of the LJP empowers central parliamentary board of the party to decide who would be the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, hence the decision of announcing Pashupati Kumar paras, MP, as leader of LJP in Lok Sabha is contrary to provision of constitution of our party,” Paswan wrote.
But Paras, who reached Patna to a warm welcome by workers, rejected Paswan’s allegations. He said: “Our party has a constitution that one person will hold one post. Chirag was in three positions. It is unconstitutional to hold three posts, so it was decided to remove him from the post of leader of parliamentary party and national president.”
