New Delhi:

Union Minister Pashupati Paras announced his resignation on Tuesday morning and withdrew his Janata Party from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led national alliance. A day earlier, the BJP confirmed a seat-sharing deal with the Lok Janshakti Party led by Chirag Paswan, Mr Paras’ nephew.

The deal between the BJP and the LJP is part of wider arrangements in Bihar for next month’s Lok Sabha elections, with Mr Paras’s party completely sidelined; the RLJP got zero seats while the Mr. Swann’s LJP won five seats, including the Hajipur constituency that his uncle won in the 2019 elections.

“The NDA (BJP-led National Democratic Alliance) deal has been announced. I thank the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). My party and I faced injustice. So I resigned as minister.”

Mr Paras was noncommittal about talks with the opposition – either with the state-level Congress-Jewish Samajwadi Party or with the Congress-led national-level India Bloc.

However, he has confirmed that his RLJP will contest from Hajipur seat.

Pashupati Paras “Freedom to Go Anywhere”

Last week, after it was reported that the BJP had finalized the deal with Bihar and that he had been excluded, Mr Paras said his party and its five MPs, including himself, would contest their bid for the seat. The seats won in the last election, while the party itself was “free to go anywhere”, led to discussions within the opposition to reach an agreement.

Five years ago, Mr Paras won the Hajipur elections as a member of the then undivided Lok Janshakti Party. The party was then led by party founder and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who was also Chirag Paswan’s father.

Paswan Sr., who died in October 2020, had served as the Hajipur MP eight times but the BJP had never won the Hajipur MP.

BJP sides with nephew, abandons uncle

The National Party’s choice to side with the Chirag Paswan-led BJP faction underscores the belief that he now has complete control over the communal vote.

Paswans constitute about six per cent of Bihar’s voting population.

The only problem facing the BJP may be that Mr Paswan and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United Party) – the other major partner in the state alliance – do not get along well.

Read | It’s official.BJP chooses Chirag Paswan, dumps Pashupati Paras

The chief minister held the LJP responsible for the party’s poor performance in the 2020 assembly elections, with the JDU contesting 115 seats but winning only 43. This comes after Mr Paras split the LJP and he and Chirag Paswan are vying for control of the LJP after the death of Ram Vilas Paswan.

This division was allegedly supported by the BJP, and as a result, young Paswan contested the state elections alone and split the votes, with some communal strongholds falling into the hands of the BJP.

The result was that the BJP won almost twice as many seats.

BJP-JDU agree on 2024 elections

This time, the BJP will contest more than half of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats, a clear sign that the BJP is now in a battle with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal. United Party) had the upper hand.

Read | BJP to contest 17 seats in Bihar, JDU 16, Chirag Paswan’s party 5

The party retained 17 seats and gave the JDU 16 seats; in 2019, the two contested 17 seats each, with the Liberal Party (then led by Ram Vilas Paswan) contesting (and winning) the remaining seats. The BJP has also restored 100% strike rate. The JDU lost only one seat – Kishanganj to the Congress.

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