Former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Monday stated that his party would no longer support the BJP-led NDA, which has opted to back his estranged nephew Chirag Paswan.
Paras, who formed Rashtriya Lok Janshakti party in 2021 after the divide in the Lok Janshakti Party, founded by his late brother Ram Vilas Paswan, announced this during an event organised here to observe the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar.
He also called Ram Vilas Paswan the "second Ambedkar" and demanded that he should be awarded the Bharat Ratna.
"I have been with the NDA since 2014. Today, I announce that henceforth my party shall have no links with the NDA," said Paras, who gave up his cabinet berth before the Lok Sabha elections last year, when his nephew's Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) got five seats to contest as an NDA constituent.
LJP(RV) won all of the seats it fought, including the late Paswan's pocket borough of Hajipur, which Paras had won in 2019 and is now represented by Chirag Paswan, a Union minister.
Notably, despite having been passed over by the alliance, Paras had tried, for some time, to get a foothold in the NDA by interacting with top leaders such as BJP president JP Nadda.
In the bypoll held in five assembly constituencies last year, his claim for one of the seats was ignored, and his proposed candidate joined the BJP, which gave a ticket to the latter's son.
He was also upset when the state government made him vacate the bungalow from where he ran his party and allotted it to Chirag.
Paras had parted ways with his nephew, voicing disapproval of his rebellion against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the 2020 assembly polls.
At the RLJP function, Paras, who formerly served in the Nitish Kumar government, also accused the JD(U) supremo of being "anti-Dalit" and claimed to have got a sense, "upon having toured 22 out of 38 districts", that "Bihar wants to elect a new government".
"In Nitish Kumar's 20-year-long rule, the education system has been ruined in the state, no new industries have been set up, and rampant corruption affects the implementation of all welfare schemes," he alleged.
Paras, who has of late been meeting RJD president Lalu Prasad, however, chose to keep his cards close to the chest and said, "I wish to soon complete the tour of the remaining 16 districts and strengthen the party in all 243 assembly segments of the state." Reacting to the development, Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, another prominent Dalit leader from Bihar, asserted "there will be no adverse impact on the NDA".
"He (Paras) may have made a formal announcement only today. But the writing has been on the wall since he began hobnobbing with Lalu Prasad," said Manjhi, who heads the Hindustani Awam Morcha.
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