BJP suspends six turncoats who joined LJP

PATNA: BJP on Monday suspended six functionaries, including two former state vice-presidents, for six years for contesting election against NDA candidates. Incidentally, all six suspended BJP functionaries have joined Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which is in alliance with the saffron party at the Centre.
Those who have been suspended are party’s former vice-president Rajendra Singh, who is contesting from Dinara and Usha Vidyarthi, who is contesting from Paliganj. Former MLA Rameshwar Chaurasiya has also been suspended for six years on the same grounds. A letter in this regard was issued by BJP state president Dr Sanjay Jaiswal on Monday.
Also, just two days after the cremation of LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan, BJP iterated on Monday that LJP is in no way associated with NDA in Bihar. Senior BJP functionary and deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi (SuMo) said only BJP, JD (U), HAM (S) and VIP are part of NDA. He, however, did not mention the alliance at Centre, where late Ram Vilas Paswan was a minister in the Narendra Modi government.
“BJP, JD (U), HAM (S) led by Jitan Ram Manjhi and VIP led by Mukesh Sahni are part of the alliance and we are contesting the election together. No other party is part of our alliance. We don’t have any kind of alliance with LJP in Bihar,” SuMo told reporters at Patna airport on Monday morning.
SuMo’s reiteration came amid the rebellion in NDA by LJP national president Chirag Paswan. Following months of rift with JD (U) national president and CM Nitish Kumar, Chirag, on October 4, announced that his party will field candidates on 143 seats. LJP is fielding its candidates on a majority of seats contested by JD (U), maintaining that it has no differences with BJP.
On SuMo’s statement and suspension of BJP functionaries for joining LJP, its national spokesperson Sanjay Saraf said, “Nitish Ji is so scared of our party that he is pressuring BJP’s state unit to take such actions. We challenge him to debate us on the issue of lack of development in Bihar during his regime. Also, we are still in the NDA at the national level and our ideologies differ at the state level. We continue to have faith in the leadership of PM Modi and believe that everybody, including Opposition parties, can use his name as he represents the entire country.”
BJP, on the other hand, has been maintaining that those who don’t accept the leadership of Nitish in Bihar, cannot be part of NDA and such parties should not use either name or photograph of PM Modi in electioneering.