From Parliament to Patna
A thick vermillion tika bisects his forehead. He is handed a naked sword, which he raises to the crowd that roars in approval. The crowd — mostly men in their youth — has been waiting for hours under a white canopy, which barely keeps the sun out. They want to hear him speak.
This is his first public address after he announced his intent to contest the Bihar Assembly election. So far, his sound bytes to the media have been framed in 'ifs' and 'buts'. No one knows which seat he will contest from. The restive crowd is waiting for clarity.
He paces through various themes, attacking the Congress for alleged 'years of neglect', hailing the NDA government in Bihar led by the Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar, and recalling the split in the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) after his father's death. In 2021, his uncle, Pashupati Paras, walked away with five out of six Parliamentarians. Somewhere at the halfway mark, his face glistening with sweat, he finally comes to what the crowd has been waiting for.
'Haan main Bihar se chunav ladunga…. Bihar ke liye ladunga,' (Yes, I will contest from Bihar; in fact, I will fight for Bihar.) There are no more details. 'It is for you to decide: should Chirag Paswan contest the Assembly election and from which seat? Chirag Paswan will do what you tell him to,' he says, referring to himself in third person, the way politicians often do. Then, 'Let me assure you: whatever I do, it will be for Bihar.'
Chirag currently holds the Hajipur Parliamentary seat that his father, Ram Vilas Paswan, won eight times. Ram Vilas had been in politics for five decades until his death in 2020. The LJP was formed in November 2000 by Ram Vilas as a Dalit-centric party. Chirag has been an active politician — after what he himself calls his 'failed stint' in Bollywood — since 2013. In the past, he was elected from the Jamui constituency.
The Bihar election will take place later this year, for 243 Assembly seats. At 43, Chirag has committed to moving from national to Bihar politics. This is unlike his father, Dalit leader Ram Vilas, who went from one Cabinet to another, headed by Prime Ministers of different persuasions, remaining firmly in Delhi. Chirag has chosen Bihar as his battleground.
Over the past month the LJP (RV) has plastered posters across Bihar, of Chirag wearing a silver crown, like the shiny plasticky versions used by local theatre groups for period dramas. 'Bihar Kar Raha Hai Tajposhi Ka Intezaar' (Bihar is waiting to crown him) a poster declares, indicating his Chief Ministerial ambitions.
Rocky relationships
This is the first Assembly election in Bihar where the LJP (RV) will be contesting alongside Nitish Kumar and campaigning for votes on his behalf. Opposing them are the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress, and the CPI (ML). 'Our voters may not switch to the other side (RJD-led coalition) but what if they simply do not step out to vote? We have to bring them to the polling booth,' a close aide of Chirag says.
Chirag's and Kumar's relationship has always been rocky. Only five years ago, Chirag ran the Assembly election under the slogan, 'Modi se bair nahi, Nitish teri khair nahi' (There's no enmity with Modi, but we won't spare Nitish).
This was despite the LJP being in the NDA together with Kumar's JD(U). Chirag's ailing father was still a Union Minister. Ahead of the election Chirag ran a campaign discrediting Kumar's administration, highlighting the gaps in delivery of welfare schemes, and training the spotlight over Bihar's backwardness. It dealt a sharp blow to JD(U) and Nitish Kumar's brand, with the party being reduced to 43 seats, a distant third behind the RJD and BJP.
In 2000, Ram Vilas was against Kumar as Chief Minister, batting for a BJP CM and arguing that they were the rightful claimants with the highest tally of seats among the allies. But the BJP ignored him to anoint Kumar, who could stay in the seat for just seven days. That was the last time Kumar and Chirag fought the election on the same side. It was also the year of the launch of the LJP.
In 2007, two years into his first full term as Chief Minister, Kumar carved out a Maha Dalit group to provide special government assistance to those marginalised within the Scheduled Caste (SC) groups. Out of the 22 sub-castes of SCs, 21 were categorised as Maha Dalit. The only sub-caste excluded was the Dusadh or Paswan. It was only in 2018 that this exclusion ended, bringing the Paswans too into the fold.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the undivided LJP, the BJP, and the JD(U), in a seat-sharing arrangement, decided to give one Rajya Sabha seat to Ram Vilas. But a few months later, just before nominations were to be filed, the father and son were sent by senior BJP functionaries to Kumar's house. There, Chirag says, he made them wait for a couple of hours and forced them to plead for the seat.
At the epicentre
The Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency that Ram Vilas represented is close to Patna. Hajipur town is just 40 km from the State Capital in Vaishali district. This is the epicentre of Chirag's politics. His face is everywhere: waving from walls, bowing from billboards, smiling from the backs of autorickshaws. The density of these posters is expected to rise as the election nears.
Paswan Tola, a village in Hajipur dominated by the Paswans, is caught in a transition. A few brick-and-mortar houses sit awkwardly between straw-and-clay structures here. It is mid-morning, and Vinod Paswan, a rickshaw puller in his mid-40s, is eating watery dal with rice and mango pickle. This meal must serve him till he returns home in the evening. Dressed in a ganji and lungi, he rinses his steel plate and sits down in his kuchha house. 'Chirag is our king. Can one fight a battle without the king?' he says. Without him in the fray, there isn't much to look forward to in the election,' he claims.
Dharamdeo Paswan, in his early 60s, lives close to Vinod's house. He says, 'I always wanted to see his father as the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister of Bihar.' He recounts the times he had seen the senior Paswan campaigning in the area. For him and many others, the switch from father to son is organic. Unlike Vinod, he is not bothered whether Chirag contests or not. 'Bihar main vote aur beti aapne jaat main dete hai,' (In Bihar, casting your vote and marrying your daughter are both decided by caste).
New vs old
For many, Chirag represents a new phase of Bihar's politics. 'I am very happy that Chirag Paswan is planning to contest the Assembly election. He has been an MP for the last 10 years. It's time for him to work in Bihar. His presence in the election will surely make a difference,' says Ambika Paswan, 65, a resident of Lalganj in Vaishali district. He is a retired government employee, sipping his morning tea and poring over the morning newspaper at the local tea stall.
Mangesh Kumar, 27, a committed Paswan voter and resident of Patna who works as a mutual fund investor, likes that Chirag is 'young and energetic', adding that 'he has many years left in politics, whereas Nitishji these days does not look healthy.'
Chirag has been incrementally building the stage for his entry into Bihar politics. In April, more than six months away from the poll, he announced to the press in Patna: 'Bihar mujhe bula raha hai,' (Bihar is calling me). He added that he would spend more time there than in Delhi.
Then began sound bytes and social media from his party MPs urging him to contest the Bihar Assembly election. His brother-in-law and the party's Jamui MP upped the ante on June 1 with his post on X. The party workers, he said, want Chirag to contest from a general seat to send out the message that he was now ready to lead not just one section (the Dalits), but the whole of Bihar.
However, the next day in Raipur, Chirag said to the media: 'There is no vacancy for the CM post in Bihar.' He also said, 'The party is evaluating whether my candidature will benefit it. Because when national leaders contest State elections, that strengthens your position in the election. The BJP has tried this strategy many times by fielding their MPs in the Assembly election and have benefitted.'
He added that Kumar would return as the CM. The NDA is going into the poll with Nitish as their Chief Ministerial face, but a leader from Chirag's party says, 'The party is preparing for all eventualities.'
With almost 20 years of Kumar's government — he is Bihar's longest serving CM — there is some voter fatigue. Nand Kishor Sharma, 45, is a lohar (blacksmith) both by caste and profession. At Gadai Sarai village, Hajipur, with temperatures rising to 40 degrees Celsius in the afternoon, Nand Kishor sits before the fire working on a shovel. He's also cooking on the side. He speaks between the rhythmic fall of his hammer.
Lohars are part of the Extremely Backward Classes, a sub-group of Other Backward Classes, created by Nitish Kumar for better outreach of government-sponsored welfare schemes. 'There should be a change,' Nand Kishor declares. He asserts that Bihar needs 'young and energetic' leaders. 'I do not know who will form the government but that there are several eligible: Chirag Paswan, Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), or Samrat Choudhary (senior BJP leader, Deputy CM).'
Ratnesh Kumar, 55, a resident of Muzaffarpur city in central Bihar, who runs a dry-cleaning shop, has a litany of complaints: 'I have not seen any change in the last 10 years except good roads and electricity. Crime has increased, and every day something happens and we have to close our shops. My son has been trying for a (State) government job for the past three year but there are few jobs.'
sobhanak.nair@thehindu.co.in
amit.bhelari@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
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