Ram Vilas Paswan

Ram Vilas Paswan (born 5 July 1946) is an Indian politician from Bihar and the current Cabinet Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. Paswan is also the president of the Lok Janshakti Party, eight-time Lok Sabha member and current Rajya Sabha MP.[3] He started his political career as member of Samyukta Socialist Party and was elected to the Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1969. Later, he joined Lok Dal upon its formation in 1974, and became its general secretary. He opposed the emergency, and was arrested during the period. He entered the Lok Sabha in 1977, as a Janata Party member from Hajipur constituency, was chosen again 1980, 1989, 1996 and 1998, 1999, 2004, and 2014.

Ram Vilas Paswan
Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
Incumbent
Assumed office 26 May 2014
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Sharad Pawar
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Incumbent
Assumed office 28 June 2019
Preceded by	Ravi Shankar Prasad
Constituency	Bihar
In office July 2010[1] – 2014
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers[1]
In office 23 May 2004 – 22 May 2009
Succeeded by	M. K. Alagiri
Minister of Mines[1]
In office 1 September 2001 – 29 April 2002
Preceded by	Sunder Lal Patwa
Minister of Communications and Information Technology[1]
In office 13 October 1999 – 1 September 2001
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Succeeded by	Pramod Mahajan
Minister of Railways[2]
In office 1 June 1996 – 19 March 1998
Prime Minister	H. D. Deve Gowda I. K. Gujral
Preceded by	C. K. Jaffer Sheriff
Succeeded by	Nitish Kumar
Minister of Labour and Welfare
In office 5 December 1989 – 10 November 1990
Prime Minister	Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Preceded by	Bindeshwari Dubey
Succeeded by	K Chandrasekhar Rao
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office 16 May 2014 – 23 May 2019
Preceded by	Ram Sundar Das
Succeeded by	Pashupati Kumar Paras
Constituency	Hajipur
Personal details
Born	(1946-07-05) 5 July 1946 Khagaria, Bihar, British India (now in Bihar, India)
Political party	Lok Janashakti Party
Other political affiliations	Janata Dal , Janata Party
Spouse(s)	Rajkumari Devi ( m. 1969⁠–⁠1981) Reena Sharma ( m. 1982)
Children	4; including Chirag Paswan
Residence	Khagaria, Bihar, India
Education	Master of Arts Bachelor of Laws
Alma mater	Patna University (M.A, LLB)
As of 30 May, 2019 Source:

In 2000, he formed the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) as its president. Subsequently, in 2004 he joined the ruling United Progressive Alliance government and remained a Union Minister in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Ministry of Steel. He won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, but lost the 2009 elections. After being a member of a Rajya Sabha member from 2010 to 2014, he was elected again to the 16th Lok Sabha in the 2014 Indian general election from Hajipur constituency.

Early life and education

Paswan was born in a Dalit family in 1946 in Bihar.[4] Paswan holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Arts degrees from Kosi College, Pilkhi and Patna University.[5] He had been selected as a DSP in Bihar police in 1969.[6][7]

Political career

Ram Vilas Paswan in his office after taking over the charge as the Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers in New Delhi on 24 May 2004

Paswan was elected to the Bihar state legislative assembly in 1969 as a member of the Samyukta Socialist Party ("United Socialist Party") from a reserved constituency. In 1974, as an ardent follower of Raj Narain and Jayaprakash Narayan Paswan became the general secretary of the Lok Dal. He was personally close to the prominent leaders of anti-emergency like Raj Narain, Karpoori Thakur and Satyendra Narayan Sinha. He parted ways with Morarji Desai and joined Janata Party-S led by Lokbandhu Raj Narain as party's president and later as its Chairman.

In 1975, when emergency was proclaimed in India, he was arrested and spent the entire period in jail. On being released in 1977, he became a member of the Janata Party[8] and won election to Parliament for the first time on its ticket, and he held the world record for winning the election by highest margin. He was re-elected to the 7th Lok Sabha in 1980 and 1984 from Hajipur constituency. In 1983, he established the Dalit Sena, an organisation for Dalit emancipation and welfare.

Paswan was re-elected to the 9th Lok Sabha in 1989 and was appointed Union Minister of Labour and Welfare in the Vishwanath Pratap Singh government. In 1996 he even led the ruling alliance or Proposition in the Lok Sabha as the Prime Minister was a member of the Rajya Sabha. This was also the year when he first became the Union Railway Minister. He continued to hold that post till 1998. Thereafter, he was the Union Communications Minister from October 1999 to September 2001 when he was shifted to the Coal Ministry, the portfolio he held till April 2002.

In 2000 Paswan broke from the Janata Dal, to form the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Following the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Paswan joined the United Progressive Alliance government and was made the Union Minister in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Ministry of Steel.

In the February 2005 Bihar State elections, Paswan's party LJP along with the Indian National Congress contested the election. The result was that no particular party or alliance could form a government by itself. However, Paswan consistently refused to support either Laloo Yadav, whom he accused of being extremely corrupt, or the right-wing National Democratic Alliance thereby creating a stalemate. This stalemate was broken when Nitish Kumar succeeded in persuading 12 members of Paswan's party to defect; to prevent the formation of a government supported by LJP defectors, the Governor of Bihar, Buta Singh dissolved the state legislature and called for fresh elections, keeping Bihar under President's Rule. In the November 2005 Bihar state elections, Paswan's third-alliance was utterly devastated; the Laloo Yadav-Congress alliance reduced to a minority and the NDA formed the new government.

Paswan together with Lalu Prasad Yadav (center) and Amar Singh (left) at a party rally in Mumbai during the 2009 general elections.

Paswan has declared that the Bihar state elections have no influence on the Central Government, which will continue with both him and Laloo Yadav as ministers. Paswan has served as a Union Minister under five different Prime Ministers and continuously held a cabinet berth in all the Council of Ministers formed since 1996 (as of 2015). He was also part of all the national coalitions (the United Front, the National Democratic Alliance and the United Progressive Alliance), which have formed the Indian Government from 1996 to 2015.[9]

For the 2009 Indian general election Paswan forged an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav and his Rashtriya Janata Dal, while dumping their erstwhile coalition partner and leader of the United Progressive Alliance, the Indian National Congress from the new alliance. The duo was later joined by Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party and were declared the Fourth Front. He lost the elections from Hajipur to the Janata Dal's Ram Sundar Das, a former Chief Minister of Bihar for the first time in 33 years. His party the Lok Janshakti Party was not able to win any seats in the 15th Lok Sabha, while his coalition partner Yadav and his party too failed to perform well and were reduced to 4 seats.

He was elected as member of 16th Lok Sabha after the 2014 Indian general election from Hajipur constituency, while his son Chirag Paswan won from Jamui constituency also in Bihar.[10]

Paswan was again given charge of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in May 2014, which continued in Second Modi ministry in 2019.[11][12]

Personal life

Paswan hails from Shaharbanni village in Khagaria district of Bihar. He was born to a scheduled-caste family. He married Rajkumari Devi in 1960s. In 2014 he disclosed that he had divorced her in 1981, after his Lok Sabha nomination papers were challenged.[13][14] He has two daughters from first wife, Usha and Asha.[15] In 1983, he married Reena Sharma, an airhostess and a Punjabi Hindu from Amritsar.[16][17] They have a son and a daughter. His son Chirag Paswan is an actor-turned-politician.[14][18]

See also

• Dalit

References

1. "Rajya Sabha members". National Informatics Centre, New Delhi and Rajya Sabha. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
2. "List of Minister of Railways of India on Indian Railways Fan Club website". Indian Railways Fan Club. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
3. PatnaJuly 5, Amitabh Srivastava; July 5, 2015UPDATED; Ist, 2015 21:40. "Bihar elections: Ram Vilas Paswan remained a facilitator, never the face". India Today. Retrieved 18 December 2019.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
4. "Ram Vilas Dalit face wherever you go, Jitan Ram Manjhi can be Mahadalit face". 29 July 2015.
5. "PIB :: Profiles". pib.nic.in. Retrieved 8 November 2011.
6. @irvpaswan (26 March 2016). "1969 मे मेरा DSP मे और MLA दोनो मे एक साथ चयन हुआ।तब मेरे एक मित्र नेपूछा कि बताओ Govt बनना है या Servant ?बस तभी मैंने राजनीति ज्वाइन कर ली" (Tweet). Retrieved 16 August 2020 – via Twitter.
7. Srivastava, Amitabh (6 June 2019). "Ram Vilas Paswan: The Weather God". India Today. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
8. "Total Revolution". archive. Retrieved 2 December 2006.
9. "Details of Member: Shri Ram Vilas Paswan". archive. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
10. "LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, son Chirag Paswan win". Daily News & Analysis. 16 May 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
11. "Shrewd Politician, BJP's Dalit Face Ram Vilas Paswan to Head Ministry of Consumer Affairs in Modi 2.0 Cabinet". News18. 31 May 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
12. "PM Modi allocates portfolios. Full list of new ministers", Live Mint, 31 May 2019
13. "Ram Vilas Paswan discloses divorce with first wife - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
14. "Ram Vilas Paswan says he divorced first wife Rajkumari Devi in 1981". IANS. news.biharprabha.com. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
15. "Will fight against dad in Lok Sabha polls: Ram Vilas daughter | Patna News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
16. "The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) - Bihar - Political way to nurture love".
17. "When Bihar netas were bitten by love bug". Deccan Herald. 14 February 2011.
18. "Arranged marriage for Chirag Paswan? - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2019.

External links

• Ram Vilas Paswan on Twitter
• Profile on Ambedkar.org
• Profile on HindustanTimes.com dated June 2004
• Homepage on Lok Sabha website
• Paswan Profile on TribuneIndia
• Paswan and Indian Muslims

Lok Sabha
Preceded by Ramshekhar Prasad Singh	Member of Parliament for Hajipur 1977 – 1984	Succeeded by Ram Ratan Ram
Preceded by Ram Ratan Ram	Member of Parliament for Hajipur 1989 – 1991	Succeeded by Ram Sundar Das
Preceded by Ram Sundar Das	Member of Parliament for Hajipur 1996 – 2009	Succeeded by Ram Sundar Das
Preceded by Ram Sundar Das	Member of Parliament for Hajipur 2014 – 2019	Succeeded by Pashupati Kumar Paras
Political offices
Preceded by C. K. Jaffer Sharief	Minister of Railways 1 June 1996 – 19 March 1998	Succeeded by Nitish Kumar
Preceded by Atal Bihari Vajpayee	Minister of Communications and Information Technology 13 October 1999 – 1 September 2001	Succeeded by Pramod Mahajan
Preceded by	Minister of Mines 1 September 2001 – 29 April 2002	Succeeded by Sunder Lal Patwa
Preceded by	Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers 23 May 2004 – 22 May 2009	Succeeded by M. K. Alagiri
Preceded by K. V. Thomas Minister of State (Independent Charge)	Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution 26 May 2014 – Present	Succeeded by Incumbent
Party political offices
Preceded by Vacant	Leader of the Lok Jan Shakti Party in the Lok Sabha 2014 – 2019	Succeeded by Chirag Paswan