Paswan hits out at Cong, Lalu: They were playing football with us

Earlier this week, aspiring Bollywood actor-turned aspiring politician Chirag Paswan delivered his most dramatic lines until now. Speaking to The Telegraph , he broke the silence on why the long-proposed alliance of the Congress-Lok Janshakti Party-Rashtriya Janata Dal did not work out. [caption id=“attachment_1417875” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] LJP Chief Ram Vilas Paswan. PTI[/caption] “I tried hard, I swear in all honesty, I tried long and hard, but in a relationship two people have to try. Twice we met Soniaji and twice she said she would ask Rahul to get in touch. I rang and I rang, often several times each day, but nobody picked up. He never made the connect, and what was I to do?” Chirag Paswan said. Paswan was not alone in attacking the Congress for the failed almost-marriage. In an interview to The Economic Times , the senior Paswan has lashed out bitterly at the Congress and at the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad. “We felt insulted by both parties,” he said. “They were treating us like as if we were nobody. They were actually playing football with us. At times it was nauseating.” He goes on to say he was given a cold reception at Rabri Devi’s home during the Chhat puja celebrations, that he spent sleepless nights over the shabby treatment meted out to them by the two bigger parties and the pressure from within the party to do something decisive, eventually leading to their re-joining the NDA. It is a telling description, that the LJP was treated with arrogance by a party that looks set to suffer a severe drubbing in the coming election, one that needs its regional allies in the short term as well as in the long term, possibly more than the regional parties need the Congress. Paswan believes he managed to keep his pride despite returning to the NDA to shore up the Bihar numbers of the campaign led by the man whose alleged role in the Gujarat violence led him to leave the NDA in the first place. Possibly, he did. He’s calling this an issue-based support to the NDA, not a merger with the BJP. The Congress, for its part, appears to have learnt its lesson even before the Paswans’ tongue-lashing. Faced with a stubborn K Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti which is now refusing acquiesce to a merger with the Congress, the party has stepped off its high horse with a fair amount of speed and has offered to discuss a possible pre-poll alliance with the TRS instead.