The Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party alliance in Bihar tonight appeared to be cracking up with LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, apparently sore over the denial of the railways and communications portfolios, announcing that the tie-up was meant only for the Lok Sabha election and not for next year's Bihar assembly election.
"The alliance was for the Lok Sabha election only, not for the assembly polls. We are free to take an independent decision for the election in Bihar," he said, after being sworn in as a Cabinet minister in the Manmohan Singh government.
In a veiled threat to his allies, the RJD and Congress, Paswan said, "whichever party I have aligned with has benefited by the transfer of Dalit votes."
To substantiate his claim, he pointed out that when he sided with the NDA in the last Lok Sabha election, the BJP-led alliance got 41 of the 54 Lok Sabha seats in undivided Bihar. The Laloo Yadav-led RJD won only seven seats in the 1999 Lok Sabha election. This time round, he said, since he was with the RJD, the secular alliance bagged the lion's share of seats in Bihar.
A sulking Paswan, who was prevailed upon by former prime minister V P Singh to join the government just 20 minutes before the swearing-in ceremony, said he hardly bothered about plum ministries. "It may be a big thing for first timers," he said in a tongue-in-cheek reference to Laloo Yadav, who is being appointed a Cabinet minister for the first time.
High drama preceded his departure for Rashtrapati Bhavan as his agitated supporters shouted, "Rail nahin to shapath nahin (No railways ministry, no oath)" and blocked the busy Janpath road as V P Singh and Ahmed Patel, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's political secretary, arrived to mollify him.
At one point, LJP sources said, the party had decided not to join the government and extend outside support to it. However, V P Singh, who spoke to Paswan for over two hours, announced that the LJP leader had agreed to share power in the coalition dispensation. Paswan then drove to Rashtrapati Bhawan in V P Singh's vehicle.
After he returned home, Paswan told reporters that he did not harbour any grudge against anybody. "My supporters were unhappy when they came to know that I am not getting railways.
"For me, ministerial berth is hardly of any significance. For a person, who has held portfolios like welfare, labour, railways, communications, coal and mines, plum ministries do not appear to be glamorous. I have even quit the government. For a first timer I handled family welfare with additional charge of chemicals and fertilizers."
Paswan, who said he did not know what portfolio he had been given, said, "I do not believe in pressure politics," when a reporter asked if pressure brought more dividends as it did in the case of Laloo Yadav.
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