Pashupati Paras announces RLJP's exit from NDA, says 'I was ignored'

Pashupati Paras - File Photo

Former Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Monday announced that his party – Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party – was no longer part of the BJP-led NDA.

Paras, whose party came into being in 2021 as a result of the split he engineered in the Lok Janshakti Party, founded by his late brother Ram Vilas Paswan, made the declaration at a function in Patna on the occasion of BR Ambedkar's birth anniversary.

"I have been with the NDA since 2014. Today I announce that henceforth my party shall have no links with the NDA. I was ignored, and the NDA did an injustice to us in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as we are a party espousing the cause of Dalits," said Paras, who gave up his cabinet berth ahead of last year's Lok Sabha polls, when his nephew Chirag Paswan's LJP (Ram Vilas) got five seats to contest as an NDA constituent.

Paras, who formerly served in the Nitish Kumar government, also accused the JD(U) supremo of being "anti-Dalit" and claimed to have got a sense, "upon having toured 22 out of 38 districts", that "Bihar wants to elect a new government".

"In Nitish Kumar's 20-year-long rule, the education system has been ruined in the state, no new industries have been set up, and rampant corruption affects the implementation of all welfare schemes," he alleged.

Paras, who has of late been meeting RJD president Lalu Prasad, however, chose to keep his cards close to the chest and said, "I wish to soon complete the tour of the remaining 16 districts and strengthen the party in all 243 assembly segments of the state."

Reacting to the development, Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, another prominent Dalit leader from Bihar, asserted "there will be no adverse impact on the NDA".

Notably, despite having been passed over by the coalition, Paras had tried, for some time, to have a toehold in the NDA by meeting top leaders like BJP president JP Nadda.

In the bypolls to the five assembly constituencies held last year, his claim on one of the seats was ignored, and his proposed candidate joined the BJP, which gave a ticket to the latter's son.