Turf war in LJP escalates as Chirag Paswan expels all five rebel MPs but loses position of party president

Action, emotion, strategy at play in the family feud of Paswan's party

In clear indications that turf war in the Ram Vilas Paswan's party LJP will continue, Chirag Paswan camp held a meeting of the national executive and announced the expulsion of five MPs of the party including his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, who rebelled and removed him from the national party president post a day after replacing him from as the floor leader in Lok Sabha.

Chirag, whose last-minute move to restore peace on Monday failed after he was not given an audience by Paras at his Delhi residence, put out an emotional tweet and released a letter he had written to Paras in March this year, reminding everyone how the latter had sulked at his elevation as party president and how this had saddened Ram Vilas Paswan then.

"I tried to keep the party founded by my father and the family together but failed. Party is like a mother and nobody should betray it. People are supreme in a democracy. I thank those who keep trust in the party," said Chirag Paswan in his letter, indicating his resolve not to give up and to go to people, claiming his inheritance to Paswan's legacy.

Read more: Chirag Paswan removed as LJP party chief

Chirag also said that people are supreme and thanked those who have faith in the party. Soon he chaired a meeting on Zoom of LJP national executive which noted that the five rebel MPs of the party---Pashupati Kumar Paras, Beena Devi, Chandan Kumar Singh, Mehboob Ali Qaiser and Prince Raj (Chirag's cousin) have taken part in the "anti-party activities" and decided as "disciplinary action" to "remove them from the primary membership of LJP with immediate effect".

Besides, the meeting also authorised Chirag to make decisions regarding the course of action about coming Assembly polls in UP, Goa, Uttarakhand and Punjab.

Also read: How Nitish avenged his drubbing by splitting LJP

Paras camp named don-turned-politician Surajbhan Singh, a former Lok Sabha MP as working president of LJP and decided to hold a meeting of the party in Patna next few days to elect a full-time new party chief. Surajbhan Singh is elder brother of Lok Sabha MP from Nawada Chandan Kumar Singh, whose meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in February this year had kicked up speculations of a rift in LJP.

The swift movement by both factions to take control of the party came a day after the Lok Sabha Secretariat recognised Paras, the leader of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in the House in place of Chirag. Both sides will also be moving the Election Commission soon to claim that their factions are real LJP.

All the six Lok Sabha MPs of LJP including Chirag and Pashupati Paras are from Bihar and Parad had for a long time held the position of LJP Bihar chief, having the organization in an iron-like grip till Chirag rose in the hierarchy and finally became the party's national President in 2019 when his father Ram Vilas Paswan was alive.

While the embers of family feud begun to brew then, senior Paswan could keep it in check when he was alive. His death in the middle of Bihar polls and the stand of Chirag against Nitish Kumar, a move which ended up benefitting BJP but undermining both JDU and LJP, substantially marginalised Chirag's position within the party.

In the March letter, Chirag had complained that his uncle did not back him when he tried to implement the agenda of Bihar 1st and Bihari 1st and toured across the state.