Chirag to launch 'aashirvaad yatra' from July 5

New Delhi: Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Chirag Paswan on Sunday announced an “aashirvaad yatra” from July 5, the birth anniversary of his father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, from Hajipur in Bihar. The move is to popular legitimacy in his battle for the party’s ownership with the rival faction, headed by his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras.

Accusing his family rivals of “stabbing” him in the back, Paswan made the announcement following a meeting of the LJP national executive which endorsed his leadership and hit out at the faction headed by his paternal uncle for working against the party’s constitution.

Paras, in turn, dismissed the meeting as an assembly of “rented crowd” and claimed that it held no legitimacy.

The Election Commission will now decide whether his group is the real LJP or whether the Chirag-led faction is right, he told reporters.

The meeting chaired by Chirag also urged the Modi government to



confer Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, on Ram Vilas Paswan, a popular Dalit leader from Bihar who died last year.

He claimed that over 90 per cent of the national executive members were in the meeting. The decision to launch the yatra from Hajipur is significant as

Paswan’s father was elected to the Lok Sabha from there for eight times, and Paras represents the seat now in the House.

Chirag said Hajipur had been “karmabhoomi” of his father and the yatra will roll out across the state and culminate with a meeting of the party’s national council.

As he fights an all out battle to reclaim his father’s legacy with all other party MPs, including his cousin Prince Raj, siding with Paras, Paswan launched an emotional attack on the rival members of his family for not waiting for even the first death anniversary of Ram Vilas Paswan and stabbing him in the back.