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The Times of India
The Times of India
National
Madan Kumar | TNN

RLSP Bihar president Prince Raj refutes rumour of split in party, says all 5 MPs are with Pashupati Kumar Paras

PATNA: Amidst speculations that three of the five Lok Sabha members of the Rashtriya Lok Janata Party (RLJP) are in talks with ruling JD(U) leadership to change the side, the RLJP state president and Samastipur MP Prince Raj and two other MPs on Sunday held a press conference to refute the rumours. The RLJP MPs claimed their party was intact and none of the five Lok Sabha members was going anywhere.

Flanked by Vaishali MP Veena Devi and Nawada MP Chandan Kumar, Prince said all four MPs of the RLJP have reposed their faith in the leadership of the party president and Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras. “All five MPs of RLJP are part of the NDA and they all will contest the 2024 general elections under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi,” Prince said. Veena and Chandan supported Prince’s statement.

However, sources in the grand alliance said elder brother of one of the RLJP MP who had reportedly engineered split in the erstwhile Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) last year leading to the formation of the RLJP and the LJP (Ram Vilas), met a senior JD(U) leader in Delhi two days ago and expressed desire to join the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance in Bihar. The said RLJP MP takes all political decisions at the advice of his elder brother.

The RLJP MP’s elder brother reportedly told the JD(U) leader that two other MPs were also ready to jump ship.

Among the three MPs who were earlier said to be making attempts to change the side, Veena Devi is spouse of four-time JD(U) MLC Dinesh Prasad Singh, while Khagaria MP Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser is father of the RJD’s Simri Bakhtiyarpur MLA Yusuf Salahuddin. Kaiser was earlier in the Congress and also held the post of state Congress president before joining the LJP. The third MP Chandan is the younger brother of former MP and Bahubali leader Surajbhan.

The RLJP became a political party in October last year after a bitter split and months of feud between the two factions of the erstwhile LJP, led by Paras and his nephew Chirag Paswan, respectively. The RLSP formally came into existence after the Election Commission, in an order issued on October 5, 2021, said that Chirag Paswan’s bloc would be known as Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), and Pashupati Paras-led faction would be called the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party.

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