PATNA: Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) president and union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Friday virtually sounded a bugle of revolt against the top BJP leadership while declaring to contest from his party’s three sitting seats in Bihar and alleged the BJP had not done justice to them. Paras also said they were waiting for the official announcement of NDA candidates from Bihar before they take any decision.
Paras’s announcement comes shortly after the BJP leadership reportedly “addressed” all concerns of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president Chirag Paswan, his arch-rival and nephew, over seat sharing. Media reports say the BJP leadership has arrived at a seat-sharing arrangement with Chirag and “agreed” to give him five Lok Sabha seats including Hajipur which has been the bone of contention between the two for long. Hajipur is currently represented by Paras in the Parliament.
“The NDA should have taken into consideration our party’s sitting seats. This (the reported agreement with Chirag) is against the coalition dharma and is injustice to us,” Paras told the media in Delhi on Friday at the end of the emergency meeting of his party’s Parliamentary Board.

“Hamari party ke saath nyay nahin kiya gaya

(Justice was not done to our party),” he rued.
He declared that he himself would contest from Hajipur—the Lok Sabha seat that he had contested during the 2019 general elections and won, while two of his party MPs, Prince Raj and Chandan Singh, would contest from Samastipur and Nawada—their sitting seats respectively. “It’s our party’s decision to contest elections from the sitting seats,” Paras announced.
Initially, Paras had five MPs to his side when the erstwhile LJP was split in June 2021 but now two MPs from his camp—Veena Devi (Vaishali) and Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser (Khagaria) have moved to Chirag camp.
“Of the total six MPs, three have been denied tickets. This has conveyed a wrong message in the country,” Paras said, adding he was awaiting the release of the official list of NDA candidates.

“Jab tak vidhivat suchi prakashit nahin hota ham intazar karenge,”

he declared but rejected the reports of him joining the opposition INDIA bloc. “Never,” he said emphatically.
Party’s national spokesperson Mayank Mouli said they were in “wait & watch” mode. “If Chirag actually has been offered five seats, three of our party MPs will contest from their sitting seats,” Mouli declared.
Informed sources said the BJP leadership offered one Rajya Sabha berth plus a Lok Sabha seat to the RLJP, but Paras rejected the offer. “

Hamlog rajini karnewale hain, sadhu ka jamat nahin

(We are politicians, not a group of sages),” Paras bluntly told reporters at the Press conference, amply indicating his level of annoyance.