After playing hide and seek for the last two days, lJP president Ram Vilas Paswan surfaced on Wednesday to announce the breaking of his party’s “existing” alliance with the RJD and expressed his readiness to join the NDA.
Party sources said that he might make an “official” announcement regarding the lJP’s alliance with the BJP at a joint Press conference, where leaders of both the parties would be present. There is also speculation that Paswan might meet the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Thursday in the Capital. After the Parliamentary Board meeting of the lJP, its chairman Chirag Paswan said that in the wake of the “deadlock” in talks with the RJD, the party had decided to look for another ally.
To a question whether the lJP would tie-up with the BJP, Paswan said: “All options are now open for the lJP.” Sources in the BJP too said talks between the two parties regarding the alliance and seat sharing have reached an “advance” stage. While the lJP has demanded nine lok Sabha seats, the big alliance partner might offer them seven to eight seats out of the total 40 seats in Bihar. According to sources, the lJP was likely to contest from Hajipur, Samastipur, Jamui, Munger, Khagaria and Vaishali seats. The new equation has come as a jolt to the Congress’ plans to have a “secular” alliance with the lJP and RJD in Bihar. Now, the Congress’ alliance with the RJD may be announced in the next few days.
In its first reaction to the new alliance emerging in Bihar, senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said that he failed to understand how Paswan could join hands with the BJP after walking out of the NDA on the Gujarat riots issue. Chirag, who was earlier in regular touch with RJD chief lalu Prasad’s son Tej Pratap and had also met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, said there was a “deadlock” on the issue of alliance between the RJD-Congress and the lJP.
“Now we are ready to take some harsh decisions. The lJP Parliamentary Board has passed a resolution that all steps, even if they are strong ones, should be taken in the interest of the party and if an alternative alliance is to be firmed up national chief (Ram Vilas Paswan) should take the decision,” said Chirag. Paswan went into “political hiding” on Monday after news about a possible BJP-lJP alliance trickled in, creating a political storm in Bihar as well in national politics.
“We had issues with the RJD for a long time. However, I had gone to meet lalu Prasad in jail where I wept over his plight. But soon after he was out of prison, leaders from the RJD started demeaning my party. We then left the decision on seat sharing to the Congress but nothing materialized even after months of waiting,” Paswan rued. Paswan dismissed suggestions that aligning with the BJP would undermine his secular credentials.