Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) chief and Jamui MP Chirag Paswan is once again set for a ‘Bihar Bachao Yatra’ in Patna aimed against the Nitish Kumar government.

He said the ‘Bihar Bachao Yatra’ was to raise pertinent issues facing the state, like failure on the employment front despite poll promise of 19 lakh jobs, lathicharge on job-seekers, remand home horror tales, rising crime incidents and failure of prohibition resulting in hooch tragedies.

“My father late Ram Vilas Paswan had also taken out such yatras and I am taking it forward for Bihar’s cause. Look at education– where it has slumped, forcing even poor people to send their wards outside. People of Bihar want their issues to be raised, which is not happening,” he said

Chirag said that the march will start from Gandhi Maidan and culminate with the presentation of a memorandum to the Governor seeking President’s rule in the state – something he had demanded in the past also. “There are hooch tragedies and people are dying, but the CM does not even think it proper to speak on it or offer compensation. Crime is taking place in the state Capital, as the police is hard pressed due to its engagement in tackling prohibition. The march is just the beginning of a long campaign thereafter against the failure of governance in the state,” the LJP (Ramvilas) chief said

“In the last assembly polls, we got 6% votes as we fought just 137 seats. Had we fought on all seats, it would have been around 12-14%, which Nitish Kumar has and he is the CM. We want to increase our vote share,” he added.

Chirag’s statement to increase party’s base comes at a time when the three main parties in Bihar – BJP, RJD and the JD-U – have also been engaged in increasing membership of their parties through state-wide campaigns. Following a snub from the RJD, the Congress is also working on similar lines.

On a large number of senior BJP leaders like Rajendra Singh, Rameshwar Chourasia, Usha Vidyarthi, Manoj Singh, who had joined the LJP prior to the 2020 assembly election, going back to their parent party, Chirag said that he had chosen a tough path for himself to build the organisation.

“Out of 137 seats that we had contested, 110 leaders are still with the party. Those who have left have not done anything new. During election time, leaders do switch over to other parties. I thank the sentiments of those BJP leaders who invited me to their party, but that is not what I want. I will go alone. We are working hard. We will also fight Legislative Council polls on our own on as many seats as we feel we can do well,” he added.