AMN
Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan has decided to join the NDA alliance. BJP President JP Nadda today met him in New Delhi and welcomed him to the NDA family.
Ahead of tomorrow’s NDA Meeting, Mr Paswan also met Home Minister Amit Shah. In a tweet, Mr. Paswan described the meeting as positive. He added that discussed alliance-related issues.
The undivided LJP under late stalwart Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan, Chirag’s father, had contested six Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and also received a Rajya Sabha seat as part of its seat-sharing deal with the BJP.
The young leader wants the BJP to stick to the same arrangement despite a division in his party, with another faction, Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party, headed by his uncle and Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras already a part of the ruling alliance.
Chirag Paswan has emphasised on clarity from the BJP about his share of Lok Sabha and also assembly seats in Bihar before formalising their alliance, sources in the LJP (R) said.
He also wants the BJP to concede to him the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, a pocket borough of his father for decades but currently represented by Paras in Parliament. His uncle has also staked claim to the seat, asserting that he and not Chirag is the late leader’s political heir.