An LJP parliamentary board meeting chaired by its president Chirag Paswan instead passed a resolution in favour of an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and said its MLAs will work to strengthen the hand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The delegations led by Baijayant Panda, Ravi Shankar Prasad (both Bharatiya Janata Party), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Janata Dal-United), Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharad Pawar) will visit a total of 32 countries and the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The body will be kept at his residence in New Delhi and on Monday, at the LJP office in Patna for paying last respects. He will be cremated in the Bihar capital on Monday evening.
The government has moved to increase the strength of the joint committee of Parliament that will scrutinise the two bills proposing simultaneous elections from 31 MPs to 39, giving representation to more parties.
The LJP, though, itself looked to have paid a big price in the process, as the Election Commission data showed that it could win just one seat while drawing around 5.7 per cent of votes. Paswan's party has, however, been instrumental in the JD-U's loss in at least 30 seats.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners - the Janata Dal-United and Lok Janshakti Party -- on Monday formally announced their alliance for the Delhi assembly polls, asserting that it will send a "strong" political message across the country.
Chirag Paswan says his party's support to BJP is issue-based.
The Lok Sabha, India's lower house of Parliament, will debate the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Bill on Wednesday. The bill has been met with strong opposition from several parties who claim it is unconstitutional. The government, however, insists the bill aims to improve the management of Waqf properties in India by bringing transparency and efficiency.
Sources later said differences between the two parties have been resolved.
Lok Janshakti Party MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, the lone Muslim to have been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday, in a shot in the arm for the opposition party amid the elections.
Shedding his discomfort with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday announced that the two parties, along with the Congress, would contest the next Lok Sabha elections jointly in Bihar.
After a meeting of LJP leaders at Paswan's residence in New Delhi, former MP and party leader Surajbhan Singh told reporters, "The alliance between LJP and BJP has been finalised."
"Lalu ji had madhur sambandh (cordial relations) with my father and political mentor Ram Vilas Paswan. I thank him for lending credence to my leadership. But, my current priority is the ongoing state-wide Ashirwad Yatra", Chirag told reporters in Patna.
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
In a bid to prevent a split in the LJ legislature party in Bihar, party national general secretary Suraj Bhan Singh arrived in Patna on Sunday morning to take back the available party MLAs to Delhi to attend a meeting called by Paswan.
This will be the first time the BJP has got more seats than Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD-U in Bihar, underscoring the change in their equations after they joined hands a few months back.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ramvilas Paswan on Wednesday said that his party will not join hands with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United, and will continue its alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Releasing his party manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said his party would contest on all 403 seats in the state.
Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance throwing all its weight to snatch Jharkhand from the hands of a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-headed coalition, the saffron camp suffered a debacle leaving the party's rank and file wondering what had gone wrong.
Nadda also claimed that the opposition in Bihar as well as elsewhere has become a "spent force" and asserted that the BJP is the only party which is being looked at by people with hope.
Paswan said the committee will not interact with the Janata Dal (United) till it severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is facing revolt from within in Bihar on a day when the Election Commission announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls to be held in April, May.
The political landscape of Bihar is set to change as the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party are in the final stages of putting together an alliance for the Lok Sabha polls.
Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party will contest six seats in Jharkhand, where the party was excluded by three other United Progressive Alliance partners in the seat-sharing arrangement. LJP candidates will contest for Palamu, Chatra, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Koderma and Jamshedpur seats out of 14 Jharkhand LS seats, party spokesman Sanjay Singh told PTI in Patna on Tuesday. =
Paswan said he was willing to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls as an NDA partner "if the BJP so desires", and made light of estranged uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras' recent meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
'If the JD-U wants to join hands with LJP, then it will have to break its alliance with BJP and in case Congress and Left Front want to have alliance with LJP, they are warmly welcome,' Paswan said.
Ram Vilas Paswan was no fool. He knew very well about the ownership tussle going on beneath this veneer of congeniality. At all costs, he wanted to keep the lid on the family drama. He did not want it to come in the way of his son's coronation.
The TDP and the LJP also supported the Bill being sent to a parliamentary committee for further examination.
Late prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh's son Ajay Pratap Singh on Friday joined the Ramvilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party.
'There are differences over certain issues between the JD-U and BJP but we are in alliance and continuing.'
Sanjeev Kumar alias Sanjeev 'Mukhiya', an alleged kingpin behind the NEET paper leak, was not only minting money but wanted to become an MP or MLA.
The NDA with 92 MLAs has the support of 17 independents and the role of the LJP MLAs to reach the magic figure of 122 in the 243-member assembly is crucial.
The state polls are due in October-November.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar is in trouble ahead of the upcoming state assembly polls as two of its ally the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on Sunday played pressure game to bargain for more seats.
He is not just under attack from his opponent Shiv Chandra Ram of the RJD, but also by his uncle Paras.
Lok Janskati Party president Ramvilas Paswan on Friday said he fails to understand why Congress is "dithering" to join the Rashtriya Janata Dal-LJP alliance which is intact in spite of sentencing of Lalu Prasad.
Paswan has said that this is not a vote gimmick but a genuine concern of the party.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday took a major step to implement its key plank of "one nation, one election" as the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, sources said.
