Why BJP's Bihar unit doesn't want an alliance with Paswan's LJP

The opportunist tag has come to haunt Ramvilas Paswan just as he was preparing to hitch a ride on the Narendra Modi bandwagon and re-enter the NDA. The Bihar BJP unit has come out strongly to protest against the move to potentially enter into a formal pre-poll alliance with the LJP for the upcoming parliamentary and subsequent assembly polls in the state. BJP president Rajnath Singh has summoned all senior party leaders from the state to Delhi for a ‘comprehensive’ consultation to come a final conclusion on three pressing issues: First, whether or not to have an alliance with Paswan, second what terms and conditions the BJP should put forward in case they decide to go ahead with an alliance, and third on whether Paswan has justified grounds to demand 10 seats. [caption id=“attachment_1407801” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The BJP is not thrilled about the tie up: AFP[/caption] Three senior leaders, namely leader of Opposition in state assembly Sushil Kumar Modi, legislative council leader Nand Kishore Yadav and state party chief Mangal Pandey arrived in Delhi on Monday. However following protest notes were heard from various levels of party’s structure, the party leadership decided to have a frank, candid and comprehensive discussion on the issue. State leaders like CP Thakur, Ashwini Choube, Chandramohan Rai, Radhamohan Singh and some others who didn’t approve a tie-up with Paswan were asked to be in Delhi by Tuesday noon. It is however, interesting to note as Firstpost gathered after speaking to some senior leaders, that they were taking the dissenting, even somewhat rebellious notes from the state leaders in stride. The buoyancy there had not dipped a bit today. There are two reasons for that – after the initial message has gone across the nation that even a person like Ramvilas Paswan who quit Vajpayee Government and went out of the NDA in April 2002 blaming it on Narendra Modi’s actions or inactions during Gujarat riot, was willing to join hands with the BJP yet again because he senses a clear Modi wave and wants to on right side of rising political force. Paswan’s son Chirag has openly told the world that riot taint on Modi was not an issue after the SIT report and court verdicts that cleared him of responsibility. The NDA is expanding and the implicit message now seems to be that Modi is no longer an “untouchable” figure in politics. Second, after making “the secularist” yield, a breakdown of seat sharing negotiations on some principled issues will impact negatively to the BJP. On the contrary, the party brass could cash it positively. A section of state leaders are not as averse to Paswan’s re-entry into NDA fold but more to the “indefensible and greedy dynastic situations” that he brings to the table. “How can we explain the entry of a rank opportunist into our fold just for the sake of gaining a few seats? How can we explain all the associated dynastic evils that he brings – ticket for self, brother, son—and then ticket for alleged die hard criminals like Surajbhan Singh, Rama Singh, Rajan Tiwari and their kin? How can a former home secretary RK Singh and a criminal like Rama Singh be on the same boat, seeking votes in Modi’s name? How can 9-10 seats be given to Paswan when he badly lost his own seats and his party lost all seats that he contested? The workers at large are up in arms. All this will be told to the top leaders and we are sure our views will be taken into consideration and a judicious decision taken”, a senior Bihar leader told Firspost. It will not be easy to deal with the side effects of a marriage of convenience with Paswan. Some other Bihar BJP leaders say that the central leadership needs to take a tough position in negotiations with LJP leaders to salvage the situation and come out with a positive perception out of this alliance. They say there should be three primary conditions for the deal even if the party agrees to reserve three seats for Paswan, his son Chirag and brother Ramchandra. First they want a restriction on the number of seats for the LJP;  four or a maximum of five - including three for the Paswan clan. Secondly they want the party to refuse tickets to the likes of Suajbhan, Rama and Rajan or their family members and make Paswan agree to replace them with one or two “soft faces”. Third, the LJP should now insist on any seat contested by the BJP in the last elections. After Nitish engineered a split in the LJP and lured some MLAs including some Muslims to his side, there is a feeling among the BJP leaders that a weakening of Lalu’s force could put the JD(U) back in a strong position. With that a series of other spiral caste and community centric effects come into place, which the BJP would like to avoid. The challenge before Modi or Rajnath Singh now, is to expand the NDA without seen to be overtly compromising on the values that they are preaching.