•Shekhar Gupta: Am I right in saying that no cabinet can be formed without you?
Ram Vilas Paswan: No, you’re right, you always right.
•Shekhar Gupta: Not without you, not without the PMK..These maybe small parties but this has empowered you people.
Ram Vilas Paswan:It is not about the party , it is the question of a votebank . The LJP has its own votebank and that votebank is such that whatever party it joins, the graph of that party rises straight away from 0 to 100. The same is the case with both the PMK and DMK.
•Shekhar Gupta: Even though you may have few seats, you command great leverage with the bigger parties
Ram Vilas Paswan: You were there in the last assembly election when we had said that there should be a Muslim CM in Bihar and even on that slogan we got 15 per cent of the vote. This implies that 15 per cent of our vote is a transferable vote. 15 per cent is not a small amount.
•Shekhar Gupta: This is the power of a leader with transferable votes.
Ram Vilas Paswan: Those leaders who have a transferable vote are the real leaders.
•Shekhar Gupta: And by this criteria the weakest are the BJP and Congress, both don’t have transferable votes
Ram Vilas Paswan: That I can’t say
•Shekhar Gupta: You can say that about the BJP atleast because if you enter a coalition with them, as Mayawati always makes the case against allying with them since she says that the BJP and Congress votes are not transferable but the local leader or caste leader’s vote is transferable.
Ram Vilas Paswan: But the transferability of Mayawati’s vote is confined to UP. Apart from UP she is struggling to get votes so where is the question of it being transferable? Whatever results have been there whether in the Assembly or LS..
