By Neeraj Kumar
Patna: Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) chief Pashupati Kumar Paras now faces a significant setback in Patna. He has lost his ministerial position and no longer holds a parliamentary seat, reducing his party’s presence to mere paperwork. On Monday, Paras vacated the government bungalow in Patna that had served as the Lok Janshakti Party office.
Paras reportedly exhausted various avenues to retain the bungalow. He appealed to Amit Shah in Delhi and filed a writ in Patna High Court, but neither effort succeeded. Shah reportedly did not intervene, and the High Court dismissed Paras’s petition to retain the property two weeks ago.
The Bihar government has a provision to allocate official bungalows to recognised political parties for use as offices in Patna. In 2005, Bungalow No. 1 on Wheeler Road, near Patna Airport, was designated as the office of the Lok Janshakti Party. The allotment was typically renewed every two years.
However, in the last Lok Sabha elections, Paras’s party did not contest any seats and therefore has no MLAs or MPs, resulting in the loss of its official party recognition. Consequently, on 13 June 2024, the Bihar government cancelled the bungalow allotment in the name of the Lok Janshakti Party. Following this, the Building Construction Department issued a notice for Paras to vacate the property.
With this loss, Paras faces diminished political influence in Patna, symbolised by the vacating of the government property that once served as his party’s office.
