Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) chief Pashupati Paras on Tuesday resigned as Union food processing industries minister and withdrew from the BJP-led NDA, a day after his party was kept out of the Bihar Lok Sabha seat distribution deal.
The BJP on Monday had preferred the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) faction led by Paras’s nephew Chirag Paswan for an alliance in Bihar along with Nitish Kumar’s JDU and two other smaller parties. The Chirag-led party was allotted five Lok Sabha seats, ignoring the Paras faction’s claims.
The RLJP president said he was thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi before expressing his displeasure over the treatment meted out to him. Paras said he had served the NDA with honesty and loyalty but received injustice.
“The NDA seat-sharing deal has been announced…. My party and I have faced injustice. So I am resigning as minister,” Paras told reporters without disclosing his plans. He is likely to explore an alliance with the Opposition INDIA bloc in Bihar.
RLJP spokesperson Shravan Agarwal said its leaders would meet soon to decide its next course of action but made it clear that Paras would contest elections.
Although Paras enjoyed the support of five of the six Lok Sabha MPs of the LJP until sometime back, none of them accompanied him to the media conference on Tuesday. Some of them, sources said, are on a hunt for striking deals with other parties, including the one headed by Chirag, to contest the upcoming polls.
Paras had won from the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat as a member of the undivided LJP in 2019.
Additional reporting by PTI