Patna: Not all is well within the Bihar BJP after it cemented alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party ahead of Lok Sabha elections. Some senior Bihar BJP leaders - Dr CP Thakur, Giriraj Singh and Ashwani Kumar Choubey and MP Kirti Azad - are apparently against the tie-up and skipped Narendra Modi's rally in Muzaffarpur on Monday. They say that the state unit did not bother to invite them for the rally
Dr CP Thakur, Giriraj Singh and Ashwani Kumar Choubey were lobbying for Lok Sabha tickets but were disappointed as the three seats which they were eyeing went into LJP's bag. Registering a strong protest, they have also written to BJP President Rajnath Singh over the way the state unit was being run.
Thakur and Giriraj Singh belong to the Bhumihar community and are otherwise vocal supporters of Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. Choubey, a legislator from Bhagalpur, and Azad, elected from Darbhanga, are Brahmins. They too are opposed to the alliance with the Lok Janshakti Party.
Sources say that the dissident in Bihar BJP is only likely to grow in the coming days, especially after candidates for 30 seats left in the party's kitty are announced.
Ram Vilas Paswan, who returned to the NDA fold after a gap of 12 years, shared the stage with Modi in Muzaffarpur rally on Monday. He was earlier in the BJP-led NDA during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He left the NDA in the wake of the Gujarat riots in 2002.
Paswan's party will contest on seven seats while BJP has also entered into an alliance with Rashtriya Lok Samata Party of Upendra Kushwaha and given him three seats. The LJP will put up candidates from Hajipur, Samastipur, Jamui, Munger, Vaishali, Nalanda and Khagaria.
Comments
0 comment