Senior BJP leader and former Bihar health minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey on Monday strongly opposed to any alliance between the BJP and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Choubey told reporters here that any such move would be suicidal for the BJP as Ram Vilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad had hatched a conspiracy to make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister of the country. “How can we have alliance with the man who has promoted dynasty politics, family rule, corruption and casteism. Any such move would be suicidal,” Choubey said.
Sources say that the BJP has agreed to give seven Lok Sabha seats to the LJP while the latter is insisting on nine. The LJP may get Samastipur, Valmikinagar, Jamui, Munger, Seohar, Hajipur and one more seat. With Ujjairpur, Karakat and Nawada seats were already given to the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, only 30 LS seats left for the BJP in the state.
Some BJP leaders, who are opposed to any alliance with the LJP and the RLSP, are of the view that the alliance with these parties exposes the weakness within. “Why we need an alliance when we say that Narendra Modi wave is sweeping Bihar. After all, Ram Vilas is the same person who lost from his own constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and Upendra Kushwaha from his own Assembly constituency in 2005, when Nitish came to power,” a BJP leader said.
Paswan’s one vote during the trust motion brought down the Vajpayee Government in 1998. Besides, he quit the NDA in 2002 accusing Narendra Modi’s role in the Gujarat riots. At present, the LJP has only one representative in Parliament as Ram Vilas Paswan, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha with the support of the RJD. And in the last Assembly election, the party had managed to win only 3 seats in the 75 seats it contested.