Unmoved by fresh efforts by the Congress to bring Lok Janashakti Party into a Rashtriya Janata Dal-led alliance in Bihar, party chief and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday stuck to his stand on a Muslim chief minister for the state.
Claiming LJP would play a key role in government formation in the state, Paswan said, "I have said earlier and I reiterate -- either a Muslim chief minister or not at all. After all, the key to the government will be in Paswan's hands."
"The issue is not about religion but about rights. Muslims have not been given their due despite comprising a large chunk of the population in Bihar as can be understood from the fact that there has been only one CM from the community so far," he said.
Paswan was speaking at a seminar on 'Why not a Muslim CM in Bihar?' in New Delhi organised by All India Muslim Intellectual Forum. He said efforts were on to create a third front comprising of non-Bharatiya Janata Party, non-RJD parties such as Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist.
Taking a dig at both Lalu Prasad Yadav and Bihar Governor Buta Singh, saying the latter had not implemented a decision to increase salaries of madrassa teachers. "This is because a particular party did not want something to be done which it had not done even after ruling for 15 years," he added.
