Bihar BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal on Friday announced that Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president Chirag Paswan will be throwing his weight behind BJP candidates ahead of the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly byelections, scheduled to be held on November 3.
Addressing a press conference in Patna, Jaiswal said that the Lok Sabha MP will be campaigning for BJP candidates next week. “We treat all parties that have fought elections in alliance with us and supported us in the Presidential polls as NDA partners. Chirag Paswan very much fits the bill and he will be campaigning on October 31 and November 1,” Jaiswal said, reported news agency PTI.
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Paswan, who is leading the party founded by his late father Ram Vilas Paswan, faced a severe jolt last year as his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras led a revolt against the LJP chief along with other party legislators.
Paswan was critical of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in 2020 when JD(U) was still a part of the NDA. Challenging Kumar, Paswan had fielded BJP rebels from his party against JD(U) at all seats in the 2020 Assembly elections.
Kumar’s party, which has joined hands with RJD and Congress in the state, has claimed that Paswan was used by the BJP to weaken JD(U) when it was a part of NDA.
Jaiswal also said that BJP will move High Court against the candidature of RJD’s Mohan Gupta from Gopalganj, which is going to polls after the death of its MLA Subhash Singh from BJP. “We recently submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission highlighting that Gupta has concealed information relating to a case of liquor smuggling lodged against him in Jharkhand. Contesting of an election by him in a dry state is scandalous. The EC, however, did not act on our complaint. So we will move the court when it reopens on November 1,” the BJP leader said, according to PTI.
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Jaiswal further alleged that voters were being threatened in Mokama, which is going to polls after the disqualification of gangster-turned-politician and former RJD legislator Anant Kumar Singh. Singh’s wife Neelam Devi is contesting from Mokama.
“Yesterday there were a couple of dacoities in the main market of Mokama. The dacoits were henchmen of Anant Singh whose main intention was to warn people of dire consequences if they dared not to support their leader,” said Jaiswal, as reported by PTI.
