— By TheNewsWeb Special Correspondent
The removal of Munger head of Lok Janshakti Party, Rajendra Bharti by the party chief Chirag Paswan after his statement that the NDA is ‘atoot’(unbreakable), points to the deeper problem in the ruling alliance of Bihar. LJP has repeatedly been giving the signal that the BJP and JDU leaders are not giving it the due recognition.
Initially some political observers interpreted the hardening of LJP stands towards JDU as a sort of muscle flexing and a tactics to emerge as hard bargained ahead of assembly elections.
The LJP has already mooted the formula of100 seats each for JDU and BJP while remaining 43 seats for itself. According to the sources, the JDU too has taken tough stand against LJP and refused to have any engagement over seat sharing with the Ram Vilas Paswan outfit. The Nitish Kumar party is of the view that LJP instead should talk to the BJP.
On the other hand, the RJD is trying to woo LJP to grand alliance side as in that case the former will be able to get a sizable Dalit votes. If any respectable formula comes out, the LJP may jump on the Grand Alliance bandwagon. The LJP leader Chirag Paswan is well aware that ailing patriarch of the Party Ram Vilas Paswan will be turning 75 by the next year and in that case, as per the formula, he will be liable to retirement from the cabinet. Ram Vilas is already a member of Rajya Sabha while Chirag, his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras and his cousin Prince is loksabha MP’s.
While Chirag is keeping the pot boiling at the political level, his father Ram Vilas Paswan has expressed his strong disapproval over the performance of Nitish Kumar government on Atmnirbhar Bharat scheme announced by The Modi government on May 14 for eight crore migrant labourers of the country. Under the scheme, each person will get 5 kg of rice/wheat and 1 kg of gram free of cost.
Paswan who is the Union Food Minister was upset as poll bound Bihar has, till now, distributed only 2.13 percent of food grains among migrant labourers. Neighbouring UP has performed even badly as only 2.03 percent of the food grains have been distributed there. In contrast, the Congress ruled Rajasthan had till June 30 distributed 95 percent of the food grains.
Ram Vilas on July 1 asked to what is preventing states, especially his own, Bihar from distributing the foodgrains when they have lifted 100% of their quota from central government.
The father son duo criticisms against Nitish Kumar government have been certainly causing embarrassment for Bihar CM.
