Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said that the traditional ballot system was a more reliable electoral metric than the sophisticated Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
Emphasising that he was not defending his party's poor showing in the recent Assembly polls, Mr. Paswan said that the party's internal review meet last week sought a probe against EVMs.
The Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United)–Bharatiya Janata Party alliance swept the polls securing 207 of the 243 seats. The LJP was mauled having secured a mere three seats of the 75 it contested. Its ally, Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal managed to win only 22 of the 168 it contested.
Vote share
The LJP supremo said the RJD-LJP alliance had not performed too poorly on the vote share front. “Of the 75 seats the LJP contested, it secured second positions in not less than 50, while gaining a significant number of votes in these constituencies,” he said, while expressing confidence that his political fortunes would soon be revived. He cited Indira Gandhi's massive comeback in the 1980 parliamentary elections.
Predicting that the NDA government in Bihar would not last longer, he said that in wake of a decimated Opposition, the people of Bihar would effectively don the mantle of the largest Opposition party.
“The last time Mr. Nitish Kumar rode high on an anti-Lalu wave…in the future it will be Mr. Nitish Kumar versus the people of Bihar,” he added.
He further indicated that in terms of vote percentage, the LJP, along with the RJD and the Congress had not fared too badly.
“The three secular parties have a combined vote share of 35 per cent, while the BJP has secured their 91 seats on a mere 16 per cent vote share and the ruling JD (U)'s vote share was only 39 per cent. This further legitimises our suspicion of the EVM.”
“There has been no question of my party allying itself with the Congress, whatever the poll results may have been. Though ideally, secular parties like the RJD-LJP alliance and the Congress must fight in conjunction against the NDA alliance,” he said, hinting that the quid pro quo bond with Mr. Prasad, which enabled him to seek a Rajya Sabha seat, still held firm.
A 15-member core committee would be formed soon while the party's strategy would be chalked out on February 20 at an internal meeting of top leaders and district representatives.
