Lok Jan Shakti Party and Chirag Paswan’s uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras was elected as national president of the party on Thursday, LJP MP Chandan Singh said.
Paras’ appointment comes after he recently staged a political coup and deposed nephew Chirag Paswan as the LJP chief.
Chirag Paswan’s group are up against the faction of five other party MPs, led by Paras, to claim ownership of the LJP.
Giving a tit for tat response to his uncle, Chirag Paswan on June 16 appointed Raju Tiwari as the Bihar unit president of the party in place of Prince Raj.
Both Paras and Chirag have claimed ownership of the party formed by late union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Notably, the faction led by Paras appointed him as the national president a day after Chirag Paswan blamed Janata Dal (United) for engineering the split in his party. While addressing the media persons, the Paswan scion rejected the decisions taken by the faction headed by his uncle.
While calling himself a ‘sher ka beta’, Paswan termed the way in which Paras was elected party leader “illegal” and threatened to move the court.
“Our fight is long, I don’t think one press conference can clear all things. “I am ready for the long legal fight, and I am son of Ram Vilas Paswan, a sher ka bacha,” he said.
“Till the end, I tried my best to keep the family and the party united. I even went to my uncle’s house. My mother also tried to speak to uncle. But all went in vain. And when we realised that everything has gone out of hand, we called a virtual meeting of National Executive and took disciplinary action against them (the rebel MPs),” Chirag Paswan said.
Justifying the decision to remove Chirag Paswan as Lok Sabha leader of LJP, Paras said that the decision was taken by him to save the party. Paras has support of five (including him) out of six LJP MPs and has been recognised as its leader in the Lower House.
Commenting on Chirag’s decision to move court against him, Paras said that loser generally goes to court, not the winner.
“It was our political compulsion to take such a decision to save the party. The MPs and MLAs of the party are experiencing frustration under the leadership of Chirag Paswan,” Paras said.
“After the death of my elder brother Ram Vilas Paswan, Chirag has taken a number of wrong decisions. Hence, the party has reached the stage of end,” Paras had said in a tweet.
