Guj polls: Paswan's LJP to contest all 182 seats

The elections would mainly be fought on the plank of atrocities against Dalits, secularism: Ram Vilas Paswan

The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will contest the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls from all the 182 constituencies in the state, party president Ram Vilas Paswan said here today.

"We will contest all the seats independently. We are not entering into any alliance with any party," he told reporters here.

"Even though the party does not have enough funds to fight from all the seats, we would still contest from all the assembly constituencies," he added.

According to him, the elections would mainly be fought on the plank of atrocities against Dalits, secularism, unemployment, farmer suicides, among other issues.

Alleging that there was a rise in atrocities against the members of Dalit community during the Narendra Modi-led BJP government, Paswan said there were 77 villages across the state from where Dalits have been barred entry.

"Modi may be a sharing stage with Muslims at various programmes, but the fact is that Muslims still live in fear in the state," former Union Minister said.

"Despite claims of (Gujarat's) development, farmers are committing suicides in the state," he said adding that there were close to one lakh unemployed people in Ahmedabad alone and 10 lakh across the state.

The villages across Vapi in south Gujarat to Godhra in central Gujarat, which the LJP party workers visited last week, are not in a good shape, Paswan said adding that development has taken place only where Union government's funds had reached.

Releasing the list of the party candidates, Paswan said that Ghansyambhai Bharvad will contest from Dholka, while the Viramgam Assembly constituency will be contested by Gabhubhai Makwana.

Chitubhai Parmar will contest from Bharuch assembly constituency.

On the question relating to BJP president Nitin Gadkari, Paswan said, "As long as Gadkari continues on the post of BJP national president, it will benefit other parties."

Replying to a query on alleged irregularities in a land deal between Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and DLF, Paswan said, "Vadra is a private businessman, who was not involved in politics."

Formed in 2000 after breaking from Janata Dal (United), LJP, which had fielded candidates from 12 Assembly constituencies in the 2007 Gujarat Assembly polls, could not win even a single seat.