"Won't Give Up Seat": Union Minister On Nephew Chirag Paswan's Claim

Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Sunday asserted that he will not give up his Hajipur Lok Sabha seat for nephew Chirag Paswan, whose late father Ram Vilas Paswan had nurtured the constituency over decades.

Mr Chirag has recently said that his party will "without any doubt" contest the Lok Sabha polls from Hajipur.

The Union food processing minister claimed that while he was already in the NDA, his nephew was in two minds about joining it despite receiving an invitation from BJP president JP Nadda to attend a meeting of the coalition on July 18.

“He (Chirag) has no standing in Hajipur. I wonder why he is spending his time there”, Mr Paras told reporters when asked about a public meeting his nephew had held on Saturday in the parliamentary constituency, seeking to galvanise the people in his favour.

Indirectly rejecting Chirag's recent claim in a television interview that the his father had wanted him to contest from Hajipur, Mr Paras said, “My elder brother was very much alive during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when I first contested from the seat”.

“I entered the fray to obey my elder brother's command. I did not want to move to Delhi. I was happy being a minister in the state. But late Paswan said he saw me as his political successor, though Chirag was his son,” claimed Mr Paras.

He also wondered what difficulty Chirag is facing in Jamui which he is representing for the second consecutive time.

“The people of his constituency must be upset over his intent to desert them. I, for my part, will not give up Hajipur,” asserted Mr Paras who expressed confidence that the BJP will back him, saying: “In coalition dharma, nobody expects you to give up your sitting seat.” He added, “I am already a part of the NDA while he (Chirag) seems to be making calculations as to how many seats he must demand (from the BJP). He reminds me of my late brother's observation that some politicians are like cattle which cannot decide which way to go on a road and get knocked down”.

Notably, Mr Paras was inducted into the Union cabinet after he split the late Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), shortly after his death, leaving Chirag isolated in the organisation of which the latter was the national president.

The Hajipur MP insisted that Chirag had “quit” the NDA during the 2020 assembly polls, when the then LJP chief had raised a banner of revolt against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and fielded candidates, many of them BJP rebels, against all those who were contesting on tickets of the JD(U).

Chirag, who makes no secret of his admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had vowed to ensure the defeat of Mr Kumar and help the latter's ally BJP form its own government. The brinkmanship left a festering sore and the JD(U), which pulled out of the NDA last year, has accused the BJP of having “used” Chirag to gain upper hand in the coalition.

Although Chirag seems to have burnt his bridges with the chief minister who is now in the “Mahagathbandhan”, his estranged uncle underscored that the nephew “has not spoken a single word” against Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav whose father Lalu Prasad heads the RJD, the largest constituent of the ruling coalition in Bihar.

The BJP is demanding the resignation of Mr Yadav after the CBI filed a charge sheet against him in the land for jobs scam.

Mr Paras also admitted that Union minister Nityanand Rai, a former state BJP chief who in the past represented Hajipur in the state assembly, has been trying for a rapprochement between the uncle and the nephew.

“He recently asked me to patch up with Chirag. But I recited to him the Bihari proverb which states that relationships which go sour are like split milk which cannot produce butter, no matter how much you churn it,” said Mr Paras.

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