Why Lalu Prasad is holding out a hand to Ram Vilas Paswan’s brother

Since then, Paras has been hanging around on the margins. The BJP did not spare any ticket for his party in Bihar, even as the LJP (RV) went on to win all the five Lok Sabha seats it contested. Chirag is now a Union minister in the Narendra Modi Cabinet – and, in fact, holds the same portfolio that Paras once held.

On Wednesday, Lalu visited Paras’s home for “Dahi-Chura bhoj”, a meal marking Makar Sankranti and the end of the inauspicious month of Kharmaas. He spent around 20 minutes at the house, accompanied by his son and former minister Tej Pratap Yadav and senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui.

Speaking to reporters as he left the house, Lalu said yes when asked if Paras could join the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan. Paras responded warmly too, saying “Lalu Prasad ji is my guardian”.

With the RJD seen as a party of OBC Yadavs and the LJP of Dalits, their support bases have traditionally been incompatible in Bihar’s caste hierarchy. However, between 2009 and 2014, Lalu and the late Ram Vilas Paswan came together on the same platform.

However, the collation of them by their support bases was not seen to have helped the two parties much at a time when Nitish was at the height of his popularity. While the LJP had contested seven seats and won none in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, with Paswan too losing, in the 2010 Assembly polls, the LJP had contested 42 seats and won only two.

But what made that union easier was the stature of Paswan as one of the tallest Bihar leaders, like Lalu.

Eventually, before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, amid the rise of Modi, Paswan had returned to the NDA and won all the six seats contested.

Paras, on the other hand, has been struggling since his brother’s death, and never credited with much of a chance in his tussle with Chirag. An MLA from Alauli (Khagaria) from 1985 till 2010, he became an MLC and held a state ministry before getting elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 from Hajipur.

In his political career, winning the Hajipur seat – Paswan’s long-standing bastion – was Paras’s highest point. But the LJP was still united at the time.

In 2021, Modi inducted Paras as the Union Minister of Food Processing Industries in a mid-term reshuffle. This was seen as largely a pressure tactic to get Chirag to move to the NDA side, with the uncle and nephew by then drifting to different factions.

The BJP is also believed to have had an understanding with Chirag during the 2020 Assembly elections, when candidates put up by him ended up hurting the JD(U). In the four years leading up to the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP and LJP (RV) further inched closer to each other, leaving Paras increasingly uncomfortable.

Finally, the BJP tied up with the LJP (RV) formally in the 2024 elections, with Chirag himself contesting and winning from Hajipur.

According to sources, Paras hoped for the NDA to accommodate him even with a governorship, but was cold-shouldered.

BJP leaders said it won’t be a great loss if Paras switched sides now to the Mahagathbandhan. A senior leader said: “Paswans constitute over 5.3% of the votes in Bihar, and Paras has no constituency of his own. Barely a year after Ram Vilas Paswan’s death, it was clear that Chirag was the inheritor of his political legacy. Chirag also proved this by his faction winning its Lok Sabha seats. Paras was proving to be a baggage for us. It will be good riddance if he joins the Mahagathbandhan.”

On the other hand, the RJD has been looking around for partners, including sending mixed signals to on-off ally Nitish Kumar. Both Lalu and his daughter and Pataliputra MP Misa Bharati recently said that “doors were open” for the JD(U) supremo and NDA leader, prompting a firm denial by Nitish. Leader of the Opposition and de-facto RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav then tried to put speculation at rest by dismissing Nitish as “a tired leader”.

With the Congress still shaky in Bihar and the Left hold shrinking, the INDIA bloc or Mahagathbandhan looks weak against the NDA ahead of the Assembly polls – a fact not lost on the RJD.

Though Paras is electorally untested, with his party NLJP not having contested any polls so far, Lalu’s gamble seems to be that any additional votes to the RJD’s kitty, at the NDA’s expense, are welcome. An RJD leader said: “As the main political opponent, it is our job to create confusion and rift in the NDA. Paras might be irrelevant for the NDA, but we still see some potential in him splitting Paswan votes.”