Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president Chirag Paswan on Friday threatened legal action against RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav for making "false" statements about the former's stand on reservations.
At rallies, especially in the Lok Sabha constituency of Hajipur which Paswan is contesting, Mr. Yadav has been claiming that the LJP (R) chief has advocated scrapping of reservations for affluent Dalits.
When the attention of Mr. Paswan was drawn to the statement by journalists, he said, "It is false. Tejashwi Yadav is speaking lies at rally after rally. He must stop it, else I may resort to legal action".
He challenged the former Bihar deputy Chief Minister to "show any statement by me in which I may have spoken, on record, in favour of scrapping quotas for rich Dalits".
Although Mr. Paswan and Mr. Yadav have been good friends for long, their relationship rooted in the close ties between their fathers, late Ram Vilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad, respectively, political rivalry seems to have got the better of personal rapport.
The LJP (R), an NDA partner, is contesting five out of the 40 seats in Bihar, and faces a straight contest with the RJD in three of these, including Hajipur, Ram Vilas Paswan’s pocket borough, where the opposition party has fielded Shiv Chandra Ram, a former MLA.
