After breaking away from the BJP-led NDA in 2020, Chirag Paswan, who heads the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), announced his formal return to the alliance on July 17. He said his party would be contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha poll in alliance with the BJP and the arrangement would continue for the 2025 Assembly election in Bihar. The Jamui MP is locked in a tussle over the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, which his late father Ram Vilas Paswan won seven times, with his uncle and Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, who currently holds the seat and heads the rival faction, the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party. Mr. Paswan spoke about the reasons that led to his return to the NDA, his party’s electoral prospects in Bihar, and the battle for the Chief Minister’s chair. Excerpts:
Why did you return to the NDA after staying away for three years?
After quitting the NDA during the campaign for the 2020 Assembly election in Bihar, I did not join any other alliance because of my belief in the Prime Minister and his policies. One doesn’t enter into an alliance just for the sake of it. You need to be ideologically in sync with your partners. In Bihar, [JD(U) chief and Chief Minister] Nitish Kumar has been in power for the past 33 years. I don’t believe in his policies. I hold Mr. Kumar responsible for the situation Bihar is in even after 75 years of Independence. The reason I opted out of the NDA was Nitish Kumar and I am back because of him.
Don’t you hold the BJP responsible for breaking your party and evicting you from 12 Janpath, where you lived for three decades?
The BJP has addressed all my concerns and we have reached a fair agreement. My aims are higher and my fight is bigger... I am not fighting for a bungalow or myself. My fight is for our vision document, ‘Bihar First, Bihari First’, which we brought out in the 2020 Assembly election. As far as my party and family are concerned, I hold no one responsible except my family members. Had my family stood by me, no one could have broken my party or the family. It was my own who betrayed me.
Your uncle has refused to concede the Hajipur seat. So, who will contest the seat from the NDA in 2024?
Eventually, this problem will be settled within the alliance. I don’t see any point in making a hue and cry over it. These are sensitive issues that have to be dealt with first within the alliance. It is against coalition protocols to make claims and counterclaims on any seat before a final decision is arrived at. I would suggest that he speaks to the senior BJP leadership before talking about Hajipur.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? When you say you have a bigger fight at hand, is that for the Chief Minister’s chair?
I am more focused on State politics. My concerns are more about my State. I am not in a rat race to become the Chief Minister.
Even when your party was united, it could garner only 5-6% of the vote share in Bihar. Do you see that changing soon?
We got nearly 6% of the vote share even though we did not contest more than 100 seats. If we had contested all 243 seats in 2020, our vote share would have been around 10%. I wasn’t campaigning for four to five months before the election as I was tending to my father, who was unwell. In the past two and a half years, I have gone door to door in Bihar, speaking to people about my vision: ‘Bihar First, Bihari First’. The positive feedback I received... the love and affection, it strengthens my belief that our vote base has increased. We will easily get 14-15% of the vote share. Today, someone who secured 14% of the votes is in the Chief Minister’s chair.
