Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan celebrates with his mother Reena Paswan after NDA's victory in Bihar Assembly elections
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has won big and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has registered a historic result in Bihar by being the single-largest party. Yet, one of the bigger winners of Friday evening is one of the youngest players of the alliance — Chirag Paswan, whose LJP(RV) has managed to hit a strike rate of 65%.
From winning only one seat among the 137 his party had contested solo in 2020, Chirag, this time, not only managed to get 29 seats in the alliance, the party has also been leading in 19 seats. With a political dexterity that is not very common to politicians his age, Chirag has, at the age of 43, not only managed to rebuild a new party from a faction of his late father’s party, but has also managed to ensure its success in a very short time.
This election is Chirag’s first Assembly polls in Bihar after he broke away from the parent Lok Janshakti Party. The parent party had contested on 137 seats in the 2020 Bihar polls, winning only one seat, but ensure significant losses to the JD(U).
A fight for political inheritance soon broke out, and Chirag walked out to form the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) party. With a new symbol, his first outing was in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when his strike rate was an impressive 100% — the party won all the five seats it contested.
Veteran journalist and political analyst Radhika Ramaseshan says that in his win, Chirag has cast aside his differences with Nitish Kumar and risen to be the inheritor of the Paswan vote in Bihar, in addition to an acceptability among the Dalits in Bihar, who account for 20% of the State’s total votes.
“The BJP talks about dynastic politics among Opposition players, but in Chirag, we have the sole inheritor of Ram Vilas Paswan’s legacy. We do not see his uncle anywhere now. And in contrast to Tejaswi Yadav, this term, he has done very well for himself,” she said.
One of Chirag’s winning traits has been his manoeuvrability — a characteristic that ensured Paswan Senior was never out of power. After his father’s party was split in 2021, the BJP put its trust in his uncle Pashupati Paras, making him a Cabinet Minister with the Food Processing portfolio, which Chirag currently holds. Chirag faced humiliation when he was ousted from Delhi's 12, Janpath Road residence in which his father had been an occupant since 1990.
Despite the humiliation, Chirag reposed his faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling himself the Hanuman of the Prime Minister. The dedication seemed to pay off when the BJP made him a Cabinet Minister and not his uncle, who went on to form the Rashtiya Lok Janshakti Party, and has not made a mark this time.
Ramaseshan says that despite allegations that the BJP has utilised Chirag to cut into the JD(U)’s votes, the NDA has worked like a cohesive unit. “And without a doubt, Chirag is now an important wheel of the NDA locomotive,” she says.