Paswan: New allies

Patna, Sept. 3: The official word is not out but it is certain that the Lok Janshakti Party is set to sever ties with the United Progressive Alliance and contest the Bihar Assembly elections as part of a third front.

Apart from the LJP, the front would comprise four Left parties ? the CPI, CPI (ML), RSP and the Forward Bloc ? and in all likelihood the Samajwadi Party. The CPM is not in this grouping.

The speculation gathered ground after Digvijay Singh, the Congress general secretary in charge of Bihar, served a near ultimatum on LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan and the CPI.

Indications are that a decision on a third front pact is almost final and the grouping would contest all 243 seats.

Digvijay said the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the CPM and the Nationalist Congress Party would contest the elections together. “We do not want the secular votes to be divided. If Ram Vilas Paswan still decides not to join our alliance, the Prime Minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Working Committee and the UPA would take a decision on the matter,” he said.

What Digvijay did not specify was what would become of Paswan’s ministerial berth at the Centre. His fate now hangs in balance for going against the “collective wish” of the UPA. While the RJD’s support is crucial for the UPA government, the Congress can easily ignore the LJP, which has four MPs in the Lok Sabha.

An LJP source said Paswan would take serious note of the “veiled threat”. “Our leader nurses no love for a ministerial post. He will prefer to quit as Union minister rather than being forced to join an alliance of which the RJD is a part,” he said.

But the real blow to the Congress today came from the CPI, which nipped in the bud the party’s efforts to bring together all anti-NDA forces.

Senior CPI leader and Left Front convener Jalaluddin Ansari said Digvijay and Bihar Congress president Sadanand Singh today appealed to him to prevent a division in the “secular votes”.

“They came to meet us but we told them point-blank that there was no way we could align with a combination of which the RJD is a part. I told the Congress leaders that the secular votes would not be divided because there is full possibility of a third front contesting all 243 seats,” Ansari said.