The Rashtriya Lok Janata Party of Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Sunday debunked "rumors" that three of its five MPs were planning to jump ship and join Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U).
The party's state president Prince Raj held a press conference to refute speculations, flanked on either side by two of the MPs, Chandan Kumar and Veena Devi.
Prince Raj claimed the third MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser had also come to formally declare that he was with the party’s stand to remain in the NDA but rushed back since he had undergone a COVID test and was having symptoms.
"You can see for yourself that the party is intact and there is no truth in the deplorable planted rumors," Prince Raj, himself the MP of Samastipur, said.
There have been speculations in the press that the party was feeling the aftershocks of the seismic events last week that altered the political landscape of Bihar, bringing back RJD and Congress to power while stripping the BJP of it.
Among the three LJP MPs seen as vulnerable, Veena Devi is married to a JD(U) MLC while Kaiser's son is an RJD MLA. Moreover, Chandan Kumar is said to be guided by his elder brother Suraj Bhan Singh, a loyalist of the late Paswan who might be weighing his options after the demise of his mentor.
The party came into being after Paras split his late brother's LJP last year, staging a revolt against nephew and heir apparent Chirag, whose defiant stance against the Bihar chief minister he disapproved of.
Post the upheaval last week, the uncle and the isolated nephew have decided to remain in the NDA camp.
The LJP had won just one seat in the 2020 assembly polls and the MLA, Raj Kumar Singh, who had sided with Chirag, joined the JD(U) last year.
Since Paras, a former state minister, moved to the Lok Sabha in 2019, the LJP had been bereft of a representation in the NDA government in Bihar. The party he heads won a seat in the legislative council earlier this year.
(With inputs from PTI)
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