It’s official.BJP chooses Chirag Paswan, ditching his uncle Pashupati Paras

New Delhi:

BJP announces seat-sharing in Bihar, openly ruling out Pashupati Paras – Chirag Paswan’s estranged uncle who controls people a faction of the party (Lok Janshakti) – leaving him completely isolated. The 71-year-old, who three years ago seemed to hold all the cards, splitting the BJP and earning a seat in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, is now fighting for his political survival.

Sources said Mr Paras will resign from the federal cabinet and his MLAs have approached the Indian Union, which was seeking an alliance with Chirag Paswan a week ago. Mr Pallas warned against this last week, saying he was “free to go anywhere”.

Paswan, who once called himself Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Hanuman”, has clung to a non-disclosure agreement and secured only five of the six seats he coveted. However, the list includes Hajipur, a seat that once belonged to his late father Ram Vilas Paswan.

Pashupati Paras, brother of Ram Vilas Paswan, is the sitting MP from Hajipur. If he wants to keep his seat, this time he will have to face his nephew. Such a fight promises to be one of the most watched.

The recent assembly polls in the state clearly show that 6% of Paswan’s votes have gone to Chirag Paswan – while the BJP is removing Pashupati Paras from the seat distribution equation This situation was taken into account.

Ram Vilas Paswan has defeated Hajipur eight times, four of them in a row starting in 1996.

The remaining seats on Chirag Paswan’s list include Samastipur, Jamui, Vaishali and Khagaria, which were among the six seats won by the Independent People’s Party in 2019.

The only fly in the ointment of the NDA may be the tense relationship between Chirag Paswan and Nitish Kumar. The chief minister has been blaming the Paswan factor for his party’s poor performance in the 2020 assembly elections.

After Pashupati Paras split the LJP (allegedly also with the consent of the BJP), Chirag Paswan contested the assembly elections alone and split votes in support of the new development bill. It has damaged the JD(U).

In the end, the JD(U) had far fewer seats than the BJP and had to cede the big brother spot to the BJP.

Many JD(U) leaders privately said this was a move by the BJP to weaken Nitish Kumar and gain the upper hand in Bihar.

Mr Kumar and Chirag Paswan have not reconciled since the 2020 elections.