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Former Union minister Jainarain Prasad Nishad (an MP from Bihar) and Ramesh Jigajinagi (from Karnataka) met Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi and informed him in writing that they had quit the Lok Janashakti Party and formed a new party Janata Dal (JP).
They requested Joshi to allot them separate seats in the House. The new party will support the NDA government, they said.
Paswan declined to comment on the development.
The other MP in the LJP, which was formed after breaking away from the Janata Dal (United), is Paswan's brother Ram Chandra Paswan.
Ramvilas Paswan had recently quit the Vajpayee government unhappy with the Centre's handling of the communal violence in Gujarat.
Nishad told reporters that the image of Paswan's party was deteriorating day by day. "We kept losing all the elections we contested due to a weak leadership," he said.
Stating that the LJP Parliamentary Board had met only twice, he said the four MPs had never sat together to discuss the party's policy on different issues. "Both of us felt neglected within the party," he said.
Nishad said though the LJP had organised two rallies in Patna (Bihar), he was not even informed about them by Paswan.
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