PM Narendra Modi attends marraige ceremony of son of Pashupati Paras (Image credit X RLJP)
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, March 16: For four days, Union Minister for Food Processing Pashupati Kumar Paras tried to reach out to his senior Cabinet colleague Amit Shah. With no response from the top strategist of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Paras tried his luck with Jagat Prakash Nadda, the chief of the ruling party. Paras saw hints of doors closing for him in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) even while he is still a Cabinet Minister.
The BJP is likely to unveil the scheme of the arrangement of the seat adjustments within the NDA shortly. The BJP has officially announced to have entered into an alliance with the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas (LJP-Ram Vilas). The seat allocations will be known shortly. But the Chirag Paswan-led outfit is likely to get five Lok Sabha seats to contest.
In the aftermath of the 2020 Assembly elections, Chirag Paswan had found himself at crossroads after the demise of his father, former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan. He had eaten out of the saffron handlers to go all guns blazing against the Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar. The script went haywire, and the BJP is widely believed to have blessed the split in the LJP as Paras and five more Lok Sabha MPs disassociated with Chirag Paswan to join the NDA government at the Centre.
After Nadda too ignored the calls of desperation of Paras, the Cabinet Minister hoped to find some assurances from the second rung leaders. The BJP Bihar in-charge Vinod Tawde showed courtesy to speak to him. This courtesy was also shown by Bihar Minister and state BJP leader Mangal Pandey.
The media in the absence of any clues of the developments in the BJP with respect to Paras sought gains from political winds blowing fast to fly kites of speculation high to run stories that the Union Minister is soon set to take path as Governor of Sikkim. In some quarters, it was also suggested that Paras would be shown respect by the BJP and accommodated in the Rajya Sabha while space be given to Prince Raj, the Lok Sabha MP from Samastipur, with a ministerial stint in the Bihar council of ministers.
Time was running out and Paras found that he has indeed been dumped by the BJP. Three of the Lok Sabha MPs of his party had called on Chirag Paswan. They may possibly get to contest the Lok Sabha elections also. Paras, thus, went public to plead with the BJP for a reconsideration from the top BJP brass, reiterating that he held Prime Minister Narendra Modi in high esteem. He had even claimed that Modi had divine characteristics. He also bemoaned that the BJP wouldn’t be doing justice to Dalits in the country if his party was not made part of the seat adjustment pact in Bihar by the NDA.
But Paras now has apparently no audience within the ruling dispensation. So, he announced that he would contest from the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat. Chirag Paswan will most likely contest from the Hajipur parliamentary constituency to assert his claims of the political legacy of Ram Vilas Paswan. There is no scope for Paras and Chirag Paswan to bury the hatches, says close associates of the Union Minister.
Paras may empathize with Dushyant Chautala, who in a sudden turn of events found dumped by the BJP in Haryana. The BJP formed another government by changing the chief minister in the state after onboarding independent MLAs.
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