Shortly after the BJP rebuffed LJP president Chirag Paswan and clarified for the umpteenth time that the NDA had no ties with Paswan’s outfit, Chirag made an emotional appeal to his party workers to ensure victory of the BJP candidate from Jamui, Shreyasi Singh.
Chirag is a LJP Lok Sabha MP from Naxal-infested Jamui, while Shreyasi, daughter of former Union Minister late Digvijay Singh, is making her poll debut from Jamui Assembly constituency as the BJP candidate.
“Best wishes to my younger sister Shreyasi Singh, the BJP nominee from Jamui Assembly seat. I appeal to all the LJP workers to extend her help. The BJP and the LJP together will help make a new Bihar....Each and every vote in favour of the JD(U) will again see the teachers being lathi-charged,” tweeted Chirag in Hindi, while rooting for Shreyasi, the gold medalist in shooting in Commonwealth Games.
Shreyasi’s father Digvijay Singh was a senior JD(U) leader, who won as a Lok Sabha MP thrice from Banka, bordering Jamui. A protege of veteran Socialist George Fernandes, Digvijay never shared a cordial tie with Nitish. Such was their rivalry during Vajpayee’s Prime-Ministership that Digvijay, who was Minister of State for Railways (when Nitish was Railway Minister in the NDA regime), had to be shifted to the Ministry of External Affairs.
After Digvijay’s demise, the BJP fielded his widow, Putul Singh, from Banka. And now, the late leader’s daughter is making her debut as the BJP nominee, and not as a JD(U) candidate.
It is against this backdrop that Chirag has thrown his weight behind Shreyasi, who, like her mother, has not forgotten the humiliation Digvijay Singh suffered at the hands of Nitish.
“For Chirag, it seems enemy’s enemy is his friend. That’s why he has gone whole hog in supporting the debutante Shreyasi,” said political scientist Ajay Kumar.
But then, the LJP is supporting all such BJP leaders who have been deriding Nitish for long and are now in the fray as BJP rebels, contesting Assembly polls on the LJP ticket.
Take, for example, the case of Rameshwar Chourasia, the four-term BJP MLA from Nokha. Or, for that matter, Rajendra Singh, the former Bihar BJP vice-president, who narrowly lost 2015 polls from Dinara by around 2,000 votes.
Denied a BJP ticket, Singh is the LJP candidate from Dinara, while Chourasia is the LJP nominee from neighbouring Sasaram. Ground reports suggest the RSS workers and the BJP sympathisers are working for these LJP candidates, instead of the JD(U) nominees. The BJP’s rebuff and clarifications (of not having any relations with the LJP) seem to have gone for a toss.