Will contest Bihar poll, says Paswan

Ending speculation, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan on Sunday announced that he would contest the Bihar Assembly poll later in the year from a seat that “people would decide for him”.

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Paswan said this at a rally in Shahad region of Arah district. “Yes, I will contest the state poll and work for ‘Bihar first and Bihari first’. I will contest from all 243 seats, for Bihar and its residents,” he said.

He also took a dig at his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, who split the LJP and floated the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) in 2021. “My father Ram Vilas Paswan is not alive and the one who had to be my father, ousted me from the house. Now, my father, brother, mother and family are you (the people of Bihar),” said Chirag.

LJP (RV) leaders have told The Tribune that Arah is one of the seats that the party has suggested for Paswan to contest from. In a jibe at Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, he said: “A leader from Delhi visits Bihar and calls it the crime capital. He is from a party that was in power in Bihar and Centre for a long time. When we talk about jungle raj, we not only talk about Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rule. The Congress rule was immersed in it. I want to remind him that during the 15-year ‘jungle raj’ under the RJD, the Congress had been an ally for five years,” he said.