Dear reader,
Politics is brutal. No one will vouch for that more urgently today than the outgoing Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Pashupati Kumar Paras from Bihar.
The BJP inducted Paras into the Modi cabinet with great fanfare in 2021 after he took control of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of his brother, the late Ram Vilas Paswan, with the support of the party’s four other Lok Sabha members, leaving his nephew and the founder’s son Chirag Paswan to fend for himself.
In less than three years, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Chacha Paras is not only out of the Modi cabinet but has fallen foul of the BJP entirely, which has now chosen to hedge its bets on Chirag, giving his party Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) five seats, including Hajipur, on which both uncle and nephew were staking claim.
A Dalit icon, Ram Vilas Paswan won the Hajipur seat eight times—the first time in 1977—and entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1980 for the highest electoral victory margin in the world, which was bested by P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991. In 2019, Paras won the seat, but this time it is Chirag who is contesting.
While a sullen Paras said that “injustice has been done to him and his party”, he has kept his options open, indicating that he might join hands with the opposition alliance of Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. To avoid this, BJP leaders are promising him samman, or respect, fuelling speculation of a possible Rajya Sabha berth or gubernatorial stint.
The developments in the two Paswan parties are dramatic even given the old cliché that there are no permanent friends or foes in politics, and their future course promises to be as interesting.
One recalls how during Ram Vilas Paswan’s public meetings, the air would be rent with cries of “Goonje Dharati Aasman, Ram Vilas Paswan” (Earth and sky echo the name of Ram Vilas Paswan). He was described famously as the weathervane of Indian politics, a survivor who never allowed ideology to be an impediment in his long political career. He had the distinction of serving as Union Minister for three decades, from 1989 until his death in October 2020, under six Prime Ministers leading different alliances.
In 2014, Chirag as the LJP’s parliamentary board chairman decided that the party would leave the UPA and hitch its wagon to the BJP-led NDA, and since then the party has done a number of somersaults. Chirag has blown hot and cold and notched up the best bargains, an art he seems to have inherited from his father. When Paras dumped his nephew and took control of the party, Chirag accused his uncle of “selling the party to the anti-Dalit JD(U) for just a post”. Now, Chirag has joined the NDA, whose face in Bihar is JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar.
In the 2020 State election, Chirag acted as a spoiler for the JD(U). Breaking off from the NDA despite swearing loyalty to BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Chirag fielded candidates in 137 Assembly seats, most of them contested by the JD(U). Of the 115 seats it fought, the JD(U) could win only 43, triggering charges of “betrayal” and “conspiracy”. It was widely believed that Chirag had the blessings of the BJP, which had grown tired of playing second fiddle to the JD(U) in Bihar politics. Now, the BJP-Chirag amity is out in the open.
In the 2016 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the LJP won all six Lok Sabha seats it contested. But after senior Paswan’s death in 2020, a turf war broke out in the party. While Chirag may claim his father’s legacy, since 2000, when the party was formed after splitting the JD(U), the party organisation has been in the hands of Paras, while Paswan was busy in the power corridors of Delhi.
Even as the BJP wages war on dynastic politics, ironically, the party it has tied up with in Bihar has often been accused of promoting Ram Vilas Paswan’s family. In 2019, when the LJP won six Lok Sabha seats, three of the winners were from his family—Pashupati Kumar Paras (Hajipur), Chirag Paswan (Jamui), and his nephew Prince Raj (Samastipur). Similarly, in 2014, when the LJP won six of the seven seats it contested, three were from the family—Ram Vilas Paswan (Hajipur), Chirag Paswan (Jamui), and Paswan’s younger brother Ram Chandra Paswan (Samastipur). After Ram Chandra Paswan died, his son Prince contested and won the Samastipur seat in 2019.
In 2015, Paswan’s son-in-law, Anil Kumar Sadhu (married to Paswan’s daughter Asha from his first wife), revolted after he was denied the ticket for the Assembly election, and not only threatened to field candidates against the LJP but also burnt Ram Vilas Paswan’s effigy. However, he returned to the fold soon. For the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Asha and Sadhu again reached out to the RJD for the party ticket, with Sadhu later joining the RJD.
Now, with the senior Paswan gone and the party vertically split, the big question is whether the party is on its last legs. The outcome of the Lok Sabha election will decide whether Chirag retains his relevance and his party, or whether the uncle-nephew storm will snuff out Ram Vilas Paswan’s great Dalit hope.
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Anand Mishra | Political Editor, Frontline
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