New Delhi: A day after the BJP suffered humiliating defeats in the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar byelections, its ally Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday hosted a dinner for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe MPs across party lines in what was seen as an effort to remain politically relevant.

Sources in the Lok Janshakti Party that Paswan heads, however, said the Union minister was hosting the dinner as part of the Narendra Modi government's effort to take corrective measures after reports from the ground suggested that Dalits had voted against the BJP in the byelections. The BJP feels large sections of Dalits had voted for Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but were feeling disillusioned now and moving away to their traditional parties.

"Paswan ji is hosting the dinner as a minister in the government to discuss proper implementation of schemes meant for the SCs and STs. The minister will take feedback from the MPs and try to address their concerns," an LJP leader close to Paswan, a mascot of the Dalits, said, indicating the dinner was government-sponsored.

One major issue that would be raised at the meeting by Paswan, according to sources, was the central government's recent notification of new rules in implementation of reservation in faculties of colleges and universities. Paswan, insiders said, feels the new rules would deprive SCs and STs from availing the full benefit of reservations and he wants to take the lead in raising the issue.

LJP leaders also felt that by getting active on Dalit issues in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls next year, Paswan was trying to regain political relevance in his home state of Bihar, where another Dalit leader Jitan Ram Manjhi has broken out of the NDA and joined the RJD. It is widely believed that Manjhi's support helped the RJD in the byelections, especially in Jehanabad where Lalu Prasad's party raised its winning margin over 2015.

Paswan is widely known as a master political weathercock and LJP leaders said that with the countdown for the Lok Sabha elections having started, he was trying to assert his political worth to extract a good share of seats in Bihar.