Chirag Paswan deplores 'ill-treatment' of father's first wife by uncle

Patna: Union minister Chirag Paswan on Saturday deplored the alleged ill-treatment of his 'badi maa', the first wife of his late father Ram Vilas Paswan, by his estranged uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras.

The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president claimed that "personal and political ambitions" had led Paras, a former Union minister himself "to first break the party and now break the family".

"After my father died, we hoped that 'chacha' (uncle) would lead the family. But he got me ousted from the party, caused its extinction, got my mother and me evicted from our house and grabbed for himself a cabinet berth," the Hajipur MP told reporters.

He was referring to the split in Lok Janshakti Party engineered by Paras in 2021, after which its symbol was frozen by the Election Commission.

Paswan, who then headed the party, was left isolated. The 12, Janpath bungalow that served as the party's office, besides being the official residence of Ram Vilas Paswan, has since been allotted by the Union government to former president Ram Nath Kovind.

Paswan was voicing anguish over a recent feud between 'badi ma' Rajkumari Devi and the wife of Paras, against whom the former has lodged a case accusing the latter of trying to evict her from her late husband's ancestral house in Khagaria district.

The Union minister said, "I urge 'chacha' not to bring women of the family into his fight against me. He seems eager on getting the house partitioned." "Let him first sort out the 'benami' wealth he has amassed from Bihar to Noida. He should rein in 'chachi' (his wife) whose behaviour has angered local villagers," he claimed.

"I have known that 'chachi' had been a government teacher. But after her bad behaviour with 'badi ma', villagers have started complaining about her misdeeds such as never going to the school, getting attendance registers signed at her home and other irregularities," Paswan added.

Paras resigned from the Union cabinet ahead of Lok Sabha polls, in protest against the BJP throwing its weight behind his nephew, who also got for himself the Hajipur seat, represented by his father multiple times and held by the estranged uncle till 2024.

The Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party president initially nursed hopes of being accommodated in the NDA, but of late has started exploring a tie-up with the RJD, the main opposition party in Bihar.