LJP national committee in Bihar expels 5 rebel MPs, decides Chirag Paswan would continue heading the party

A rift within the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar appears imminent, as the party’s national executive committee expelled its group of five rebel members of Parliament (MP) following a meeting headed by Chirag Paswan. The committee also declared Paswan as the leader authorised to take decisions for the upcoming assembly elections.

In a tweet, the party said that the resolution was passed to remove the five MPs for anti-party activities. It also shared a copy of the resolution which said, “The National Executive Committee has unanimously decided to remove Shri Pashupati Kumar Paras MP, Smt. Beena Devi MP, Chaudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser MP, Shri Chandan Singh MP and Shri Prince Raj MP from the primary membership of Lok Janshakti Party with immediate effect.”

“The National President of LJP Shri Chirag Paswan is authorized to take all decisions in the coming assembly election on behalf of the party,” the resolution further said. Apart from the expulsions, the committee also discussed the party’s course of action in the upcoming state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand and Punjab.

LJP leader Raju Tiwari also confirmed that the five MPs have been removed from the party. “A national executive meeting was held and [it was] decided to remove all the 5 MPs from the party,” news agency ANI quoted Tiwari as saying on Tuesday. When asked if the party’s leader Chirag Paswan was betrayed, Tiwari acknowledged it positively and said “There is a process of doing things in a party. This will be called a betrayal,” ANI reported.

The decision by the committee came after another similar emergency meeting took place at the residence of the party’s new parliamentary leader Pashupati Kumar Paras on Tuesday afternoon, in which Chirag Paswan was removed from his post as the party’s national president.

Also read | From leadership aspirations to losing LJP, how Chirag Paswan got outmaneuvered

Earlier on Monday, the entire series of events started unfolding when five of the six LJP MPs (now expelled) intended to remove Paswan as the leader of the parliamentary party and replace him with Hajipur MP Pashupati Kumar Paras. They also conveyed this decision to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. The MPs had said that they were unhappy with Paswan’s style of functioning. Paras, who is also Paswan’s uncle, said that he had nothing against his nephew and said he only wants to save the party and not break it.

When asked if he intends to merge LJP with the ruling Janata Dal (United), Paras said “This is 100% wrong. LJP is our party, the organisation is strong in Bihar. I was with NDA and I will continue to be a part of the alliance.”

Meanwhile, the primary opposition, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress have blamed chief minister Nitish Kumar for the coup in LJP. Notable, Paras had praised Nitish Kumar and called him a ‘Vikas Purush’ earlier on Monday.