Both Chirag Paswan and Pashupati Paras are pleading before the Election Commission for the allotment of Lok Janshakti Party’s (LJP) party symbol, with both factions presenting and posting verbal claims and counters over it. This was raised especially after Paras was elected party president unopposed, later being inducted in the Union Cabinet of Narendra Modi’s government.
Far from being settled, the Paswan nephew-uncle pair is testing the waters rather than calling it shots for Paswan’s growing proximity with the Laloo Prasad Yadav family who have always held Ram Vilas Paswan in high regard for his stature as a messiah of oppressed and downtrodden. Politically, the RJD would want to benefit from this move rallying the crucial support of the dominant Yadavs and Paswan forming the crucial chunk of the electorate.
Maybe, a Chirag would want to assess and evaluate the situation before jumping the ship as it would be naive of him to get cosy with parties promising him assurances and berths as he appears to be on the sticky wicket from where anything and everything is possible. Chirag, you better look out for with your credibility shrinking and eroding to an all-time low, as for your blunder of contesting against Nitish Kumar’s JDU — it was very much on board with the NDA having a difference of opinion with the BJP on select issues that could have been resolved by consensus.
At best, widened by the gap in terms of seats won together by both the parties recasting and reconfiguring their alliance, Chirag, to some extent, can be said to have reaped what he sowed. His anxieties and apprehensions in keeping his flocks away from friction and feuds have brought disrepute to Ram Vilas Paswan’s legacy as the champion of social justice and empowerment ensuring dignity for the deprived. How will you compensate is the question predominating our minds since the beginning of this scramble.