The Election Commission on Tuesday assigned new symbols for the warring Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) factions — one, led by Chirag Paswan, son of the late Ram Vilas Paswan, and the other, by Pashupati Kumar Paras, the senior Paswan’s brother. Ahead of the bypolls set to take place in Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan assembly segments of Bihar, the Paswan-led faction will be recognised as Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) with a 'helicopter' symbol. Whereas, Paras' faction will be termed as the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party with a 'sewing machine' symbol. The EC's decision comes three days after it froze the 'bungalow' symbol for the LJP, allowing neither Paswan nor Paras to use it in the upcoming bypolls. Earlier this year, both Paswan and his uncle had staked a claim over the LJP and passed orders 'expelling' each other. The party split in June after five of the party’s six MPs — Paras (Hajipur), Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser (Khagaria), Veena Devi (Vaishali), Prince Raj (Samastipur) and Chandan Singh (Nawada) — ousted Chirag as their leader and replaced him with Paras. On the other hand, Paswan held a meeting of the LJP National Executive on Zoom, and announced expulsion of the five ‘rebel’ MPs from the party.
