Support BJP-LJP in Bihar, UP assembly polls: Ram Vilas Paswan

Varanasi: Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) president and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan yesterday appealed to people to unite and bring his party and BJP to power in upcoming Bihar as well as Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

 Addressing a 'Dalit Mahapanchayat' here, he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making his efforts in fulfilling the promises he made during the Lok Sabha elections, saying that the PM had ensured corruption-free deliverance by his government in the last 10 months and had even controlled the rising inflation.

Paswan appealed to people for not paying heed over the opposition's claims that the Land Acquisition Bill was against their interest.

"The Land Bill was in the interest of the country which will benefit farmers and labourers," he said.

"It will provide a better opportunity, when in a stretch of one km from both the sides of the road (national highway), new factories and other manufacturing units would be setup, it would then create jobs and they would get employed, he said.

Paswan trained his guns on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, saying Yadav had opposed the proposal of reservation in promotion in Parliament which could not get inacted.

Paswan also claimed that the proposed merger of Janta Pariwar by six parties does not have any future.

"It is just like the return of jungle raj once again," he said, adding that "to counter the growing influence of the Narendra Modi-led BJP, they are forming this Janata Pariwar, but it won't make any impact".

On crops damage due to unseasonal rains, Paswan said proper compensation would be given to all the affected farmers.

He also emphasised on the need of amendment in the old law of crops compensation which has a lot of defects.

"This old law which was defective and the previous Congress government did not take any step for its rectification will now soon be mulled over by his NDA government, which will make its efforts for rectifying it," he said.

He also criticised BSP chief Mayawati, saying that in UP there was no improvement in the lives of Dalits and Scheduled Castes people, but the lives of Dalit leaders such as Mayawati has surely improved.

Paswan reiterated his demand for bringing up the reservation system in private sector too same as in the government sector jobs.

The Union Minister's son and MP Chirag Paswan was also present on the occasion.