Moments after Chirag Paswan was removed as Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president by five party MPs, the Paswan-led faction expelled the rebel MPs, including senior party leader Pashupati Kumar Paras, from the party.
During a press conference, LJP leader Raju Tiwari confirmed that a national executive meeting was held today and it decided to remove all the 5 MPs from the party.
When asked whether Paswan has been betrayed by rebel leaders, Tiwari said, “There is a process of doing things in a party. This will be called a betrayal.”
Earlier in the day, Chirag Paswan was removed as the national president of the LJP by the Pashupati Kumar Paras-led faction. The development came a day after five out of the six MPs of LJP joined hands against the Paswan scion.
After removing him as the party chief, rebel MPs said that the decision was taken while keeping the principle of ‘One Man, One Post’ in mind.
LJP rebels chose Suraj Bhan Singh as the new working president and election officer of the LJP. He has been asked to conduct an election for the new president within five days by calling the party’s national executive.
According to reports, Pashupati Kumar Paras, who has been leading the rebellion, is most likely to be elected the new chief of the LJP in the coming days.
Chirag Paswan, who is yet to make a comment on the rebellion, today shared an old letter where he had urged his uncle and LJP MP Pashupati Kumar Paras to take responsibility to keep the party united like his late father Ram Vilas Paswan.
It should be noted that five of the six LJP MPs in Lok Sabha have joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected Pashupati Kumar Paras, the youngest brother of Paswan’s late father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, in his place, causing a big churn in Bihar politics.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat yesterday recognised Paras as the leader of the LJP in the House, a day after the five MPs informed Speaker Om Birla about their decision.
Paras lauded Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a good leader and “vikas purush” (development-oriented man), highlighting the deep fault lines within the party as his nephew has been a strong critic of the supreme JD(U) leader.
“I have not broken the party but saved it,” Paras, the MP from Hajipur, told reporters.
He asserted that 99 per cent of LJP workers were unhappy with the turn of events in Bihar as Paswan led his party against the JD(U) and it fared poorly in the 2020 assembly polls.
