Lok Janshakti Party chief and Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has declared that his son Chirag Paswan would be the next president of the party. Mr. Chirag Paswan is Lok Sabha MP from the reserved Jamui seat in Bihar.
“After me, Chirag Paswan will head the LJP as he has the capability,” declared Mr. Paswan at the end of the two-day party national convention at Rajgir in Nalanda on Friday. Mr. Chirag Paswan also heads the party’s Parliamentary board.
Berths for brothers
One of the LJP chief’s younger brothers, Pashupati Kumar Paras, recently became Minister for Animal Husbandry in the Nitish Kumar cabinet. His other younger brother Ramchandra Paswan is party MP from Samastipur.
Though three of the six LJP MPS — Rama Singh, Veena Devi and Choudhury Mehboob Ali Kaisar — stayed away from the party convention, Mr. Paswan denied any differences within his party or the NDA over seat sharing for the 2019 general elections. “All coalition partners in the State are working together so that the NDA is able to bag all the 40 seats here,” Mr. Paswan said addressing local journalists.
On corruption cases against RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Mr. Paswan said the former was paying a heavy price for pursuing vindictive politics and being an opportunist. “Lalu Prasad is paying the price for his sins…he pursued the politics of self-interest instead of social justice,” the Minister said.
He said the RJD chief had scuttled his chances of becoming the Railway minister in 2004. “In the UPA government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the then PM Manmohan Singh had offered me the portfolio of Railway Minister but Lalu Prasad had put pressure on them and scuttled my chance to grab the ministry for himself,” rued Mr. Paswan.
Mr. Paswan further said he had never compromised on his ideology and did not hanker after posts. “I was offered the Chief Minister’s post thrice but I refused each time,” he said.
Mr. Chirag Paswan said, “We’ve asked our cadres to work in accordance with the ideology of B.R. Ambedkar…we’re also laying stress on apprising the common people of the initiatives taken by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.”
