AMID GROWING indications that Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) leader Chirag Paswan is in the process of firming up an alliance with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and might even get a Union Cabinet berth, his uncle and National Lok Janshakti Party (NLJP) head Pashupati Kumar Paras might find himself in a spot. In the struggle following the death of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) founder and Chirag’s father Ram Vilas Paswan in 2021, the LJP had split into two factions, with the Election Commission later allotting the name LJP(R) to Chirag and the NLJP to Paras. With the NLJP already a part of the NDA, Paras, the Hajipur MP, is currently the Union Minister of Food Processing and Industries. The uncle-nephew duo have made it clear that there is no scope of them coming back together. In a recent interview to The Indian Express, Chirag said there was no question of a "merger" of his party with the NLJP, adding that he would field a candidate from his uncle’s seat in Hajipur as well. While Chirag has always been keen on an alliance with the BJP, the latter had kept him hanging. Now, as the BJP tries to tie up all loose ends and expand the NDA before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it has been reaching out to Chirag for months. On Sunday, in an official gesture, the BJP's Nityanand Rai, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and Ujiyarpur MP, held a meeting with Chirag. Sources from both the BJP and LJP(R) indicated that Chirag would also be accommodated in the Union Cabinet. A source close to Paras insisted this would not mean him being dropped from the Cabinet to accommodate Chirag. "Dropping Paras could hurt the BJP, and it would wait and see whether the uncle and nephew patch up before the next Lok Sabha polls. If it does not happen, the BJP may have a Plan B for Paras,'' said the source. Chirag is the only MP from his party, while Paras' s NLJP has five MPs. But the BJP clearly sees him as an asset. Chirag’s recent tour of Bihar and series of events are seen as having worked in his favour. An LJP (R) leader claimed that Paras had “become a baggage for the BJP”, and that Chirag would “benefit” the party. “The BJP first tried to weaken Chirag…but it has now realised that Chirag alone has inherited his father's political influence. The BJP also knows that some of the NLJP MPs are in touch with Chirag and could contest the 2024 polls on LJP(R) ticket,” the source said. For the BJP, getting Chirag in addition to Paras will only be win-win. It already has former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) back securely in the NDA, thus sealing the Dalit vote behind it. The BJP is next eyeing an alliance with Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal and Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP). Ram Vilas Paswan, considered the senior most among Bihar's trio of charismatic politicians, along with Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, formed the LJP in 2000. Paswan, then the leader of the apolitical Dalit Sena, saw an opportunity to form a party of Dalits to create his own political space in the OBC-centric politics of Bihar. The party made a mark by winning 29 seats (almost 12 per cent votes) in the 2005 February Assembly polls in Bihar. In subsequent polls, the LJP's vote percentage ranged from 8% to 6%, making it a key ally in any alliance it chose to be a part of. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it won six of the seven seats contested; in 2019, it won all of the six seats it contested.
