The intra-family war of words over the Hajipur (reserved) Lok Sabha seat is getting shriller by the day. Just two days after Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan said that it would be easier to win if his mother Reena Paswan contested from the seat, his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras countered on Saturday, saying that if Mr. Paswan wanted to field his mother from the Hajipur seat, he too would put up someone from his family to contest the Jamui (reserved) parliamentary seat. Mr. Paswan is the MP from Jamui.
Mr. Paras, president of the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) and Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, also asserted that he was the “permanent and trustworthy ally of the NDA, while there was no guarantee whether [Chirag Paswan] would be in the NDA or not”.
Legacy seat
The late Ram Vilas Paswan — Mr. Chirag Paswan’s father and Mr. Paras’ elder brother — had represented the Hajipur seat in the Lok Sabha eight times, making it his personal stronghold. In the 2019 LS poll, he had fielded his brother, Mr. Paras, from the seat, in a move to retain his political and electoral legacy. After the senior Mr. Paswan died in October 2020, however, his Lok Janshakti Party was split into the two parties now led by his son and brother.
“When [Chirag Paswan] wants to contest from Hajipur seat, he can now contest on all 40 Lok Sabha seats of Bihar. But if he is in the NDA, he must obey the party line. If he fields his mother from the Hajipur seat, I too can put up someone from his family from the Jamui Lok Sabha seat,” Mr. Paras told journalists at Hajipur’s circuit house.
‘No contest’
Asked whether there would be a contest for the Hajipur seat if Mr. Paswan fielded his mother there, Mr. Paras asserted, “There will be no contest at all. I’m the permanent and trustworthy ally of the NDA. But there is no guarantee whether [Chirag Paswan] will remain in the NDA tomorrow or not... For over a dozen times, I’ve said that I’ll contest from the Hajipur seat and whoever wants to show off his power is free to contest against me.”
Mr. Paras had earlier said, “In 2019, when my late brother Ram Vilas Paswan went to the Rajya Sabha, he asked me to contest the Lok Sabha seat from Hajipur and now I’m the natural claimant of the seat, not Chirag Paswan.”
Mr. Chirag Paswan formally announced his return to the BJP-led NDA fold on July 18, after meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda, calling the BJP a “natural ally”. Since then, however, the bitterness between him and his uncle has only gotten worse. The buzz in political circles is that though the BJP has been trying hard to broker peace between its allies, the two leaders are both adamant about claiming the Hajipur seat. “Let’s see who wins — chacha or bhatija (uncle or nephew) — in this family drama,” quipped a senior State BJP leader.
