Eyeing an unopposed majority in next year’s Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has invited several of its new allies and some former ones to attend the NDA meeting on Tuesday – including Chirag Paswan and his uncle Pashupati Nath Paswan – in a pitch to re-unite Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and bring the two factions under one umbrella.
The BJP-led has invited all NDA members to Delhi in a show of strength by the ruling alliance on the same day as a mega Opposition meet takes place in the southern city of Bengaluru to unite against the Modi government.
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On Friday night, Union Minister Nityanand Rai met with Chirag Paswan for the second time in a week. His party, the LJP(R), also shared the letter of invitation written by BJP president JP Nadda to the young leader, where he described the regional party as a key constituent of the NDA and a key partner in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government's push for the development and welfare of the poor.
The Paswan junior was officially pushed out of the NDA in 2021 when his uncle Pashupati orchestrated a coup against him and took several rebel MLAs to split the party and form his own LJP faction. Since then, the uncle and nephew duo have been caught in a soup over the Hajipur seat in Bihar, formerly held by Chirag’s father Ram Vilas Paswan.
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Whereas a split in the LJP spearheaded by his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, now a Union minister, weakened him, Chirag Paswan is seen to have succeeded in retaining the party's loyal vote bank with him, signalling the BJP his importance in a state where it is pitted against the formidable coalition of the RJD, JD(U), Congress and the Left.
Nadda’s invitation to him underscores the BJP’s push to bring him back into the NDA's fold after he walked out of the alliance in Bihar in the 2020 state assembly polls to campaign against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was then the BJP's biggest ally.
Meanwhile, Uncle Paras has reportedly turned down the invitation. According to an NDTV report, Pushupati Nath Paras said he had a “good talk” with Nityanand Rai, but when he asked for the rival duo to get together, “I said not possible”. “When things go wrong, when the milk curdles, no matter how hard you try, you get no butter," Pashupati said.
BJP’s Mega Outreach
Meanwhile, the BJP president has reportedly also written similar letters to leaders of various parties, including those the ruling party has reached out to ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha is one of them, and his son Santosh Kumar Suman told PTI that he will attend the July 18 meeting. He has also received an invite from Nadda, he added.
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A number of new BJP allies, including the Shiv Sena headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the NCP faction headed by Ajit Pawar, several smaller parties from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and regional parties from the northeastern states, are among those expected to attend the NDA meeting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be present at the meeting, seen as the BJP's show of strength of the ruling bloc, National Democratic Alliance, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
This is for the first time during the second term of the Modi government that an NDA meeting of this scale is taking place after a number of old and key BJP allies, including Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Janata Dal (United), severed ties with the party over a host of issues.
