Updated: October 11, 2020 11:05:57 pm
Chirag, 37, is no longer a rookie. He’s ambitious and doesn’t want to play a minor role in the long run. (Illustration credit: Suvajit Dey)
At some point before the 2015 Assembly elections, then-Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) Chairman and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan was sitting at his Srikrishna Puri residence in Patna, meeting with visitors, asking about their welfare and discussing politics. In the next room, the new member of Parliament from Jamui Chirag Paswan was speaking with a group of LJP workers. “Chirag ne ab sab sambhaal liya hai (Chirag has taken care of everything now), ”said the proud father.
Read also | Sushil Kumar Modi: the deputy forever
When told that his son looks too urban, without his father’s connection to the grassroots, senior Paswan smiled to say it was because he had studied in Delhi. And while Chirag competes from Jamui, far from Paswan’s stronghold, Hajipur, he is very well connected to his fatherland of Shaharbanni in Khagaria and a quick learner of Bihar political semantics, his father added.
Paswan was an intuitive, perceptive, and calm leader, the quintessential old-school politician who had friends on the other side of party lines. After a 51-year career, the “weather vane” of Indian politics, having served as a minister in the cabinets of six prime ministers (as the Union’s minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in his last position) , passed away last week. While emotions for the socialist legend would rise during the election campaign, without his father anymore, all eyes are now on the two-time Jamui deputy and LJP national president Chirag.
Read also | Ram Vilas Paswan: Weather vane who worked for the Dalits, friends on the other side of the division
The 2020 Assembly polls would be the first real test for the old actor turned politician from a single film for two reasons. First, he would be in the field without his father for the first time. Second, since LJP officially withdrew from the NDA alliance in Bihar (LJP is competing for 143 seats, with its candidates against JD (U) nominees in the majority of seats), there will be no direct blessing of the first Minister Narendra Modi. This election will be a litmus test for Chirag’s noble “Bihar First, Bihari First” mission against the tried and tested Nitish Kumar. All Chirag social media account identifiers are prefixed with “Yuva Bihari”. Much of this stance has been followed by relentless attacks on the Chief Minister’s government record.
Chirag, 37, however, is no longer a rookie, having learned the art of political correctness in the company of veterans. He’s ambitious and doesn’t want to play a minor role in the long run. Before breaking ties with the Nitish-led NDA, he had convinced his workers that they were the latest Assembly polls of the previous generation of socialist leaders, Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, and that the future would belong to the younger generation . This election seems more like a kind of investment for the next one.
Their argument is that contesting between 20 and 30 seats would still yield two or three MLAs, so it is better to rebuild LJP and give it an all-Bihar appeal competing for more seats.
Paswan had given his son a free hand and allowed a transfer of power before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when he had rejoined the NDA on the advice of Chirag. The move turned out to be a political success: LJP won six of the seven seats it contested and emerged as the second largest party behind the BJP. Last year Paswan, a sick old man, resigned and Chirag was elected national president of the LJP.
However, not long ago, Chirag had set his sights elsewhere. The engineering graduate made his Bollywood debut with Mile Naa Miley Hum (2011), starring Kangana Ranaut, the current talk of the tinsel town. The movie fell apart, though its song Katto gilehri made some waves.
Read also | The curious case of caste in the Bhojpuri cinema
Back home, his father had other plans. Chirag had previously had the opportunity to campaign for Paswan senior in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in Hajipur, though Paswan lost that election to Ram Sunder Das, 87, of JD (U).
The LJP had bottomed out in the Grand Alliance and Paswan, for the first time since his debut in Delhi since 1989, was not a Union minister. With heart disease detected in 2013, power was transferred to his son, who reformulated his father’s policy by joining the NDA and won the 2014 and 2019 elections.
While the BJP may now be using the LJP as its springboard to emerge as the largest party, the onus still falls on Chirag to prove his worth, for which he needs to win between 8 and 10 seats in this poll. If JD (U) ‘s strength is reduced because of him, I would still call it a success.
Roughly 4.5 percent of the Paswan community has joined the BJP, with a few exceptions, and the LJP’s 5-12 percent vote share since 2005 is ample evidence of the party’s influence. Chirag needs to put his father’s advice on the power game into practice and decide whether to pursue politics in the Center, like the last Paswan, or focus on the state.
📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and keep up to date with the latest headlines
For the latest election news, download the Indian Express app.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
.
