File photo of LJP chief Chirag Paswan with JDU president and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. (PTI)
LJP sources have made it clear that they will not form an opposition alliance. They said the LJP’s announcement is driven by a number of factors, including Chirag Paswan’s desire (37) to prove himself after assuming party leadership from his ailing father Ram Vilas Paswan and the party’s desire to take over. JD (U) as he believes that Kumar had been working overtime to undermine his political position.
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Sunday’s decision by the Lok Janshakti Party to withdraw from the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar has overturned conventional wisdom and opened up new possibilities in the three-phase assembly elections starting on October 28. The Chirag Paswan-led party said it will stand candidates against JD (U) but not against the BJP, an attempt to damage the election prospects of the party led by Prime Minister Nitish Kumar in the hope that a performance below the mean makes Kumar’s leadership in the NDA in the state unsustainable.
LJP sources have made it clear that they will not form an opposition alliance. They said the LJP’s announcement is driven by a number of factors, including Chirag Paswan’s desire (37) to prove himself after assuming party leadership from his ailing father Ram Vilas Paswan and the party’s desire to take over. JD (U) as he believes that Kumar had been working overtime to undermine his political position.
However, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s main rival RJD alliance, Congress and the left will believe that their prospects have improved with the LJP decision, as the party of Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan will eat the votes. of the NDA, political observers said. The NDA was seen as having an advantage over the opposition alliance due to its broader social coalition and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the national level and Kumar in the state, but the LJP’s decision has brought new equations into play. .
With Ram Vilas Paswan’s party constantly praising Modi’s leadership and urging the BJP to lead the alliance in the state as well, the development can send confusing signals to traditional NDA voters, especially in districts where both the JD (U ) as the LJP, opposition parties will also compete. A senior JD (U) leader, who declined to be named, noted that top BJP leaders, including party chair JP Nadda and Interior Minister Amit Shah, have endorsed Kumar’s leadership in the alliance in the state, and Modi has praised it too. several times in recent events.
“The LJP is overestimating its strength. Once Modi and Kumar address a few joint public meetings in the state during the campaign, all confusion will disappear,” he said. The LJP believes that Kumar has faded as a political force in the state and a strong section of voters in the NDA wants to see him turned from behind and for a new leader to emerge.
He hopes to attract the support of anti-Kumar voters. The LJP traditionally draws its support from a large bloc of Dalit voters and has several upper caste leaders in its ranks, who are influential in different sectors of the state.
The LJP had deployed a similar strategy in the February 2005 assembly elections in the state when it was part of the UPA alliance led by Congress in the Center, but it opposed RJD, the main UPA member in Bihar. His gamble paid off initially, as the party with its 29 MLA maintained the balance of power in a hung assembly that, however, was dissolved and a new election was called.
The LJP again fought independently while still a member of the UPA in the Center, but this time the people gave the NDA alliance headed by Nitish Kumar a clear majority, ending the RJD’s 15-year reign of Lalu Prasad. Yadav in the state in 2005. Political observers Will be watching if the LJP again achieves a change of government in the state under its new leader.
The nomination process for the first phase, according to which 71 of the 243 total seats will go to the polls, began on October 1 and will end on October 8.
(With PTI inputs)
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