Patna, (Samajweekly) The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar resembles a house deserted after the demise of its founder Ram Vilas Paswan with his son and Jamui MP Chirag Paswan finding it difficult to pick up the pieces and take everyone along with him.
Nutan Singh, who was the only LJP representative in the Bihar Legislative Council, has also switched over to the BJP.
In the assembly elections held last year, Chirag had introduced his party by calling himself ‘Hanuman’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, the BJP leaders, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said during his Bihar tour that only the BJP, JD-U, Vikas Insan Party and Hindustani Awam Morcha are included in the NDA.
Despite this, the LJP was believed to have succeeded in creating confusion among the voters. This is the reason that LJP may have won one seat in the election while the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) had lost many seats. However, for Chirag, the bet now seems to be backfired.
The BJP sent a clear message to the LJP by not sending any other LJP leader to the Rajya Sabha seat vacated after the demise of LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan. The move indicated that the LJP’s position in the NDA is no longer the same.
In the assembly elections, JD-U finished as third and the JDU consider LJP responsible for this.
In such a situation, although JDU leaders do not speak openly about LJP, they definitely say that BJP has to think about the LJP.
Also, the JDU is leaving no stone unturned to take revenge on LJP.
JDU has included more than 200 LJP leaders in its party. Former MLA Rameshwar Chaurasia, who contested on the LJP ticket, also got disenchanted with the LJP and left the party.
The speculation continues even after Rajkumar Singh, the lone LJP MLA, met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Besides, on Tuesday, hundreds of workers including many veteran leaders of LJP’s state, district and block units joined the BJP.
At a programme in Bettiah, BJP state president Dr. Sanjay Jaiswal said that the BJP is a family and those who join it will be respected here. In the past, there was a strong alliance of LJP-BJP.
Champaran is seen as a BJP stronghold, and with LJP leaders switching over to the BJP, it has now become an impregnable fortress.
The LJP leaders claim that the party is moving ahead with “Bihar First, Bihari First” campaign.
However, it also seems that after the Bihar assembly elections, the cracks in LJP are widening.
