Want to contest Assembly polls for the sake of Bihar: Chirag Paswan

Time of India

5 hours ago

Rajgir (Bihar): Union Minister
Chirag Paswan
on Sunday asserted that he wanted to contest the upcoming assembly polls "for the sake of Bihar," unfazed by what he called "jittery" detractors trying to put hurdles in the way.
The
Lok Janshakti Party
(Ram Vilas) president addressed a rally titled 'Bahujan Bhim Sankalp Samagam' at Rajgir, in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's home district of Nalanda.
The Hajipur MP urged the people to be on guard against the "false narrative" of the opposition INDIA bloc, which had "alleged during the Lok Sabha polls last year that the Constitution will be under threat if Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a third consecutive term".
"They are trying to play the same trick again in the run up to assembly polls. But you must remember that the worst attack on Constitution came during the Emergency when the Congress was in power and countless young men, mostly Dalits, minorities and OBCs, had been forcibly sterilised", alleged Paswan.
He added, "Today the Congress and its allies are busy trying to present themselves as the champions of minorities by attending a rally in Patna where they are opposing the
Waqf Act
which had been brought for the benefit of poor Muslims. They should be asked about the Turkman gate massacre".
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Launching a frontal attack on RJD's
Tejashwi Yadav
for "allying with the Congress just for the sake of power", the Union minister challenged him to "seek an apology from Rahul Gandhi for excesses during the Emergency, the sufferers of which include his own father (RJD president Lalu Prasad)".
Mocking Gandhi for carrying "a red copy of the Constitution", Paswan charged the Congress with having ignored, while in power, the contributions of
Babasaheb Ambedkar
.
"It was the government of VP Singh, supported by the BJP, in which my idol and father late Ram Vilas Paswan a minister, that Bharat Ratna was given to Babasaheb, his picture was installed in Parliament and the report of Mandal Commission, put by the Congress in cold storage, was implemented", he pointed out.
"The opposition keeps raising the false alarm that reservation will be scrapped. Let me give you the guarantee that this is not going to happen, as long as Chirag Paswan is alive", he added.
The LJP(RV) president said that his interest in politics of the state was symbolic of "people returning to their home after having been forced to flee because of the lawlessness that prevailed under
RJD rule
".
"Many people are jittery that I want to come to Bihar. They are trying to know whether I will be contesting elections here. I wish to tell them, I want to contest assembly polls for the sake of Bihar. So that my dream of Bihar First,
Bihari First
is realised", said Paswan.
He added, "Hurdles are being put in my way. But I am not going to dissuaded. Earlier attempts to break me by causing a split in my party and a rift in my family have failed to dishearten me. I urge my party cadre to fan out across all 243 assembly constituencies and fight for the victory of NDA, with the intensity as if Chirag Paswan were himself in the fray. You give me NDA's victory in assembly polls. I will give you a developed Bihar".