RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s offer of a Rajya Sabha berth to LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan is aimed at further cementing the ties between the two Bihar parties that started during the Lok Sabha polls mainly as a result of the Congress party’s rebuff of both the regional parties.
The very spectacle of Mr Paswan filing his nomination as a joint candidate of the RJD-LJP at the Bihar Assembly on Tuesday reinforced the keenness in the two parties to consolidate Bihar’s backward and dalit votes ahead of the Assembly polls. Mr Paswan was accompanied by both Mr Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi during the filing of nomination for the June 17 polls. RJD sources said Mr Yadav insisted on remaining personally present along with his wife during Mr Paswan’s filing of nomination papers to send a message to Bihar’s dalits, traditionally the LJP’s voters, that the RJD was strongly behind them like Mr Paswan has been. The RJD-LJP evidently plans to stop the backward-dalit votes from going either to Bihar’s ruling NDA or the raring Congress.
In yet another way of showing their friendship, Rabri Devi proposed Mr Paswan’s candidature, while LJP Bihar state chief and Mr Paswan’s brother, Pashupati Nath Paras, proposed the candidature of former Patna RJD MP Ramkripal Yadav, who also filed his nomination for the RS. Ramkripal Yadav had given up his claim for the Pataliputra LS seat for the former railway minister to contest. The seat, however, went to the JD(U). Mr Paswan, known to grow into an independent power centre in any group he associates with, is still seen with suspicion by a section of the RJD, especially due to the past political enmity between the two parties.