Saturday, August 27 2005 19:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Unmoved by fresh efforts by Congress to bring Lok Janashakti Party into an Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led alliance in Bihar, party chief and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today (Aug 27, 2005) stuck to his stand on a Muslim Chief Minister for the state.

Claiming Lok Janshakti Party (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 (of Muslim CM) 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.

He said efforts were on to create a third front comprising non Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), non RJD parties such as Communist Party of India (CPI), Forward Bloc, Republican Socialist Party (RSP) and CPI (ML).

Taking a dig at both Lalu 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.