That’s as per Chandan Singh, one of the five LJP MPs who rebelled against Chirag Paswan.
New Delhi: Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) Member of Parliament from Nawada, Chandan Singh, believes that Chirag Paswan’s political advisor Saurabh Pandey and the blind faith that Chirag Paswan had on him, has led to the present situation in the party. Singh is among the five party MPs who rebelled against Chirag Paswan. He spoke to The Sunday Guardian on the why and how that led to the split in the LJP. Edited excerpts:
Q: What were the circumstances which brought the LJP to the present situation?
A: In every party, the party president is changed periodically; in the LJP, too, the same has happened. Having said that, there is an advisor to Chirag Paswan with whom every worker, and leader of LJP is angry and his name is Saurabh Pandey.
He was the de facto president of our party. Pandey is a resident of Uttar Pradesh, has never worked in Bihar, has no knowledge of politics, yet he was handling our party affairs. He kept boasting about his political acumen and how he is the “karta-dharta” of the LJP. How could we work under him? The entire party has been antagonized by Pandey. I don’t know what problem Pandey has with Chirag Paswan that has brought him to this position. The people had voted for us in 2019 as we were a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). When the Bihar elections came, our party leader decided to contest against the NDA due to which our voters got angry and our workers started grilling us that we had ensured your win to strengthen the NDA, Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi and today you are seeking vote against them, what kind of politics are you doing?
Q: Were there any other issues?
A: Workers were angry that our base is Bihar and yet Chirag Paswan was choosing “outsiders” for important posts. The newly appointed party president Raju Tiwari is from Uttar Pradesh. During Chirag Paswan’s time, the de facto national party president (Saurabh Pandey), too, came from UP. Does the LJP not have a capable leader from Bihar? If that is the case, Chirag Paswan should go to fight the elections in UP, what is he doing in Bihar?
Q:..But Raju Tiwari was appointed as the state unit president last week.
A: No, he was appointed the acting president four months ago. Chirag Paswan had made up his mind to make him the full-time president, angering the party workers and leaders.
Q: Have you asked your voters what they want?
A: We are leaders who are grounded, interact with voters every day, we rarely go out of our constituency, we keep getting regular feedback. For the past few months, people would ask us, where is Chirag? Why is Saurabh Pandey acting as the party president?
Our guardian, Ram Vilas Paswan, wanted us to be a part of the NDA and to keep supporting Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi, but Chirag Paswan went against both of these desires of his father, and he did all this on the advice of Saurabh Pandey, his advisor. We told him not to take such decisions, but Chirag Paswan never cared, whatever Pandey said was heeded to. We decided that we cannot allow the party to weaken due to the desires of a few individuals and that’s why the MPs and workers, decided that we need to take control of the party.
Q: Chirag Paswan has said that of the 77 national executive members of the LJP, your group does not even have the support of 10 members.
A: It is day right now, if you want to call it a night, it is up to you. The Election Commission of India (ECI) will decide this issue on the basis of the signatures of members that we have submitted with the ECI. Chirag Paswan does virtual meeting, takes virtual signatures. We have done one-on-one meeting, taken signatures on paper. There is a lot of difference in both, the national executive members are with us. Tell me something, why would all five MPs be upset with Chirag Paswan? There has to be some reason? Not a single MP is supporting him. The members of the national executive are not with him, on Thursday, when the internal voting took place, every national executive member selected Pashupati Nath Paras as their leader.
Q: Chirag Paswan has alleged that he was removed from the party president post so that the other MPs and Paras can become more powerful and join the Union cabinet.
A: What power are we seeking? We are already MPs, and have the support of people who have voted for us so that we could bring development in the region as part of the NDA rather than join the UPA.
Q: You have been a part of the LJP since 2004 and knew Chirag Paswan for so long. Did you not counsel Chirag Paswan?
A: Leaving us aside, journalists tried to make him understand the mistakes that he was making, when he did not listen to them, why would he listen to us, we are too small a people for him.
Q: When did this whole tussle start?
A: This started when Chirag Paswan started walking down the anti-NDA road, we could not follow him on that road because we know we got votes due to Nitish Kumar and Modi, that is a fact.
Q: Why didn’t you go separate ways then? Why now?
A: The situation at that time was not right to do any such thing. Ram Vilas Paswan had passed away, we were broken, our workers were broken, our guardian had passed away, we were nervous, our minds had stopped working. Later, we came together, discussed the situation and decided that we cannot allow what Chirag Paswan is doing to happen.
Q: Some experts believe that the Paswan voters will stay with Chirag Paswan rather than go with the Paras-LJP.
A: Two things, Chirag Paswan has not been removed from the party, he is welcome to take part in the party affairs and secondly, we get votes from Brahmin, Rajput, Bhumihar and Paswan.
Everyone voted for us because of Ram Vilas Paswanji. Saurabh Pandey has changed the entire system ever since coming close to Chirag Paswan. Now people need to write an email to Chirag Paswan to meet him and the appointment waiting time is six months. Do you think that such protocols would be appreciated by the voters? How many of our voters have internet and email addresses? Saurabh Pandey decides whom Chirag Paswan will meet. Only one person is responsible for the situation that we, the party and the Paswan family is in and that is Saurabh Pandey. The Sunday Guardian reached out to the 34-year-old Saurabh Pandey multiple times for a response on the developments taking place in the LJP, but he did not respond. No response was received from Chirag Paswan either.