NEW DELHI, 29 November 2004 — The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president and federal minister Ram Vilas Paswan officially declared an all-out war on the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) government in Bihar at a party rally, attended by thousands of his supporters and party activists.
The LJP leader pledged to end the “15-year misrule of the Lalu-Rabri government” in the upcoming assembly elections and asked for support from the people. “People are fed up with this jungle raj that is suitable only for criminals on the payroll of RJD,” Paswan said. In an indication of his souring relations with the Congress party, the LJP leader announced that his party would contest all seats in Bihar and Jharkhand in the assembly elections due early next year and spurned Janata Dal-United overtures for an electoral tie-up.
“We will contest all the 243 seats in Bihar and 80 in Jharkhand all alone,” Paswan said, asserting his party was all set to chart an independent course in the two states.
Paswan also warned Congress President Sonia Gandhi of losing serious ground in Bihar if it continued to support “the corrupt and criminal Rabri government.” “I told Sonia Gandhi that if her party was intent on committing political suicide, it was free to continue its alliance with Lalu Prasad’s RJD. The LJP is capable of defeating the RJD in Bihar and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jharkhand on its own,” he asserted.
Paswan had persistently sought the backing of Sonia in his fight against Lalu with whom he had entered into an electoral alliance in the last parliamentary election.
The Dalit leader’s assertion to go it alone in the assembly election is indicative of the growing distance between him and the Congress leadership, which seems to have preferred Lalu to Paswan.
Paswan’s declaration also seems to have put paid to the hopes of Janata Dal (United) parliamentary party leader Nitish Kumar, who had mooted the idea of projecting the LJP president as chief ministerial candidate of the anti-Lalu grand alliance.
In a separate development, Shiromani Akali Dal, a key ally of the opposition National Democratic Alliance, has asked the BJP to take all the NDA allies into confidence over Hindutva issue. He said that his party was “watching” BJP’s reported move to revive the Hindutva agenda. The BJP, led by Lal Krishna Advani, should take all the NDA constituents into confidence over the Hindutva issue, former Punjab Chief Minister and Akali Dal President Parkash Singh Badal told reporters here. “They should take all allies along,” he added.
Asked whether the party was planning to review its alliance with the BJP if the right-wing party shifted back to Hindutva, he said: “We are not in a hurry.”
About the assertion of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that Sikhs were “part of the Hindu community”, Badal said “the fact that Sikhs have a separate identity will not change just because RSS or even Advaniji or anybody else says so.”
