LJP (RV) hints Chirag Paswan will contest Bihar Assembly election from general seat
Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) on Sunday (June 1, 2025) hinted that party supremo and Union Minister Chirag Paswan would contest the Bihar Assembly election from a general seat instead of a reserved seat.
In a social media post on 'X', Jamui MP Arun Bharti said that party workers wanted Mr. Paswan to contest from a general seat to send out the message that he was now ready to lead not just one section of the people but the whole of Bihar.
In April, Mr. Paswan had said that he wanted to focus more on Bihar and did not want to spend much time at the Centre. Assembly election in Bihar is due this year in October-November.
'Our National President Chirag Paswan ji always says that his politics is Bihar-centric and his vision 'Bihar First, Bihari First' is a resolution for a developed and self-reliant Bihar. This is only possible when he himself stays in Bihar and leads,' Mr. Bharti said in the post.
He further said, 'When I went from village to village as the State in-charge, people everywhere had only one demand – that Chirag ji should now play a bigger role in Bihar. Recently, in the party executive meeting, a resolution was also passed unanimously that he himself should contest the upcoming assembly elections.'
Last month, Mr. Paswan had a closed-door meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna, fuelling speculation about his plans for the upcoming election. It was believed that he wanted to keep Mr. Kumar in the loop before making a decision.
'The workers also feel that this time he should contest the elections not from a reserved seat, but from a general seat – so that the message goes out that he is now ready to lead the entire Bihar, not just one section. Chirag Paswan today is not just a representative; he is the hope of the entire Bihar. This step will give a new direction to the politics of social justice – in which the fight for representation as well as acceptance will be fought,' Mr. Bharti asserted.
Reacting to the development, Janata Dal (United) spokesperson Abhishek Jha said that workers of any political party always wanted their leader to get the top post.
'Every citizen of the country has the right to contest elections from any place. If there is talk of Chirag Paswan ji contesting the Assembly election, what's wrong in that? He himself has said that there is no vacancy for the CM post in Bihar as the entire NDA will contest the election under the leadership of Nitish Kumar,' he said.
Stating that Mr. Paswan was a strong partner of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Kuntal Krishna said, who would get which Assembly seat would be decided during seat distribution talks. If the LJP(RV) wanted to field Mr. Paswan from any of the seats they get for their party after seat sharing, they were most welcome, he added.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwary took a dig at the NDA, claiming that chaos had already started in the alliance over who would become the Chief Minister.
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Mr. Singh, a former IAS officer known for his booth-level organisational skills in the JDU, fell out with Mr. Kumar and was removed from the Union Cabinet in October 2024. He has since then been a harsh critic of Mr. Kumar, calling Bihar's bifurcation and the prohibition a mistake. 'According to some estimates, almost ₹20,000 crore of tax revenue from liquor is not being utilized. Prohibition is only on paper. Liquor is not available in shops but is available for home delivery. Anyone who wants to consume it can get it at a premium price. A huge section of officers are earning ill-gotten money through corruption and in the name of stopping liquor sale, half of the police force is trying to control it and trying to have a piece of the cake,' explains Mr. Bharti. Factors affecting JSP's strategy and its prospects The passage of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, during this year's Parliamentary Budget Session gave rise to questions about the potential impact on the polls in Bihar, where Muslims make up around 18% of the population. According to a Lokniti-CSDS survey, the Mahagathbandhan has cornered the Muslim votes in the past three decades. In 2005, the Mahagathbandhan cornered 40% of the Muslim vote, while NDA polled only 4% of the community's votes. In subsequent elections (2010, 2015 and 2020), Nitish Kumar's shifting loyalties have swayed the Muslim vote towards either coalition. With the NDA, JDU helped the coalition by polling 21% support from Muslims, while RJD polled 32% of the Muslim votes, and Congress, which did not ally with the RJD, got 22% votes. In 2015, JDU allied with RJD and cornered the support of 69% of Muslims, while NDA got only 6% of the community's vote share. Five years later, 76% of Muslims voted for the RJD-Congress combine while only 5% of Muslims supported the NDA. The Lokniti-CSDS survey concluded that the JD(U)-BJP alliance has never been a primary choice for Muslim voters, making a significant electoral shift unlikely in 2025. 'There is little reason for the NDA to worry in Bihar,' mused Lokniti-CSDS analysts in a column in The Hindu, dismissing JSP's impact in these polls. However, Mr. Bharti disagrees. 'We have a selection process which entails feedback from the ground from the village level, from the block level, from the division level before evaluating candidates. Per seat, atleast 5-10 potential candidates have been nominated of which one will be chosen,' he says. The party is following the same pattern to identify candidates as that used by political consultancy firm Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) —an organisation founded by Mr. Kishor. Instead of castes, JSP has divided Bihari society into five broad classes – forward, backward, extremely poor, Muslims and Dalits. 'Based on their percentage in the population, as per the caste census that was done in Bihar, we will distribute tickets for all 243 seats. For example, Muslims constitute 18-19%, so they will be given 40 seats,' says Mr. Bharti. When asked if a Muslim candidate will be chosen in a Muslim-majority constituency, he says, 'Yes, that will be the main criteria.' Mr. Kishor has hinted at his own poll debut from Raghopur. The seat has been held by Lalu Yadav's chosen heir, Tejashwi Yadav, since 2015. Not ruling out a potential clash between Mr. Kishor and the RJD scion, Mr. Bharti says, 'Mr. Kishor has said that he has no problem fighting from any seat the party decides, including Raghopur. He is not afraid of fighting anyone from anywhere.' Raghopur, which falls under the district of Vaishali, has a sizable population of Rajputs in the Yadav-dominated region, opening avenues for the JSP to split the upper caste vote in the seat.
