The chairman of the Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP), Chirag Paswan, wanted to play the role of kingmaker, but ended with the total annihilation of his party. It did not win a single seat and secured second place in eight seats in the Bihar Assembly polls for 243 constituencies.
Also read: Bihar will win and become a new young Bihar, says Chirag Paswan
Paswan, who had claimed during the election campaign that he is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Hanuman”, has hurt the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). There are at least 27 seats where the margin by which the JD (U) lost to ‘Mahagatbandhan’ is the same as the number of votes in favor of the LJP.
He agreed to 25 former BJP leaders who could not get a ticket. The gamble just didn’t pay off. In Dinara, he sent senior leader Rajendra Singh, an RSS veteran. Mr. Singh lost by almost 3,000 votes. In Bhagalpur, the LJP got Vice Mayor Rajesh Verma to compete against Congress, but he too lost. It is telling that in Hasanpur, Lalu Prasad’s son and Tejashwi Yadav’s brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, could win just because the LJP got nearly 10,000 votes, which is their margin of victory against JD (U).
Even in the face of his sustained campaign against Nitish Kumar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not explicitly reprimand Paswan, giving the impression that the BJP agreed with his decision.
Also read: Chirag Paswan continues to attack Bihar CM in his campaign
Until the eve of the results, the LJP was confident of spoiling the chances of the JD (U) with 60 seats and winning at least 10 for them. The results were shocking for the match. Mr. Paswan has been silent on the radio since the morning.
Third solo exhibition
This is the third instance in which the LJP, since its formation in 2000, has gone solo. In February 2005, he won 29 of the 178 seats in which he fought to corner nearly 18 percent of the vote. Within a few months, in October, they were in decline, winning just 10 of the 203 seats they contested, garnering 11.10 percent of the vote. Tuesday’s results are markedly different from these two elections. This time, his share of votes increased marginally from 4.83 percent in 2015 to 5.63 percent.
And the defeat could not have come at the worst moment for the party with the death of its founder Ramvilas Paswan on the eve of the October 8 elections. The results raise many questions as to what will be the position of the LJP in Bihar, where Mr. Nitish Kumar returns as Chief Minister. It remains to be seen whether the BJP will forgive the LJP enough to give him the Rajya Sabha post that was left vacant after Ramvilas Paswan’s death and whether Mr. Paswan gets the Cabinet post held by his father.
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