Quashing all rumours of an alliance with the Congress in the near future, Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) supremo Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday said his alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad was as “solid as a rock.”
“After this win, people won't have the chance to spread canards as they used to earlier about my alliance with Mr. Prasad,” Mr. Paswan told journalists here.
The LJP chief won the Rajya Sabha seat with 39 votes from Bihar.
Mr. Paswan said, “If they [the Congress] really wished to support me, then they had their chance now.”
The RJD-LJP combine had issued whip well before polling for the Rajya Sabha seat, while the Congress, after blowing hot and cold for a while, finally issued a whip on Wednesday, directing its 10 legislators to abstain from voting.
Moreover, ever since it separated from Mr. Prasad and Mr. Paswan in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the Congress line in Bihar has consistently been to go it alone for the Assembly polls as well.
Mr. Paswan had long set his sights on the Rajya Sabha since his bitter defeat to at the hands of Janata Dal (United) candidate Ram Sundar Das from his constituency, Hajipur, in 2009.
Thanking Mr. Prasad for his wholehearted support, Mr. Paswan said he would soon confer with the RJD chief to start campaigning for the Assembly polls at the district levels.
Mr. Paswan pointed out that there was no cross-voting on the part of the LJP's 12 legislators. He also thanked the Communist Party of India for its support. “I will utilise the Rajya Sabha forum to address the problems plaguing Dalits. There is need for a strong Dalit voice in the Upper House,” Mr. Paswan said. He would also take up issues such as the non-implementation of the Ranganath Misra Committee report on minorities and money laundering and corruption in Bihar.
On independent candidate B.G. Uday entering the fray, he said it had become the “business of certain people to destroy Bihar and play politics on the strength of their filthy lucre.”
