Ram Vilas Paswan remains LJP choice for Modi’s ministry

NEW DELHI: Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan will be re-inducted into Narendra Modi’s Union Council of Minister on Thursday. A meeting of LJP leaders held in New Delhi on Tuesday decided to have Paswan as the party’s representative in the Union ministry. Earlier, Paswan had recommended that his son Chirag Paswan be made a minister but LJP MPs and its other leaders said Paswan senior should again take up the responsibility.

The leaders elected Chirag as its Lok Sabha party leader and second-time MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser as his deputy. Ram Vilas Paswan’s younger brother, Samastipur MP Ramchandra Paswan, will be the party’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha.

Paswan senior is not an MP but was promised a Rajya Sabha seat by alliance partner BJP during seat-sharing talks before the Lok Sabha elections. The law requires a Union minister to be elected to either House of Parliament within six months of assuming office. Two Rajya Sabha polls will be held in Assam as early as mid-June when former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress MP Santiuse Kujur complete their term but BJP has announced Kamakhya Prasad Tasa as its candidate and has left the second seat for alliance partner AGP. RS bypolls are likely to be held soon to replace MPs elected to the Lower House and who will hence quit the Upper House. One such MP will be Ravi Shankar Prasad from Paswan’s home state, elected to the Lok Sabha from Patna Sahib.


“We are in discussion with Amit Shah and there are vacancies in other states too. I would have something to share on this in a day or two,” Chirag Paswan told ET. Chirag said RJD was in disarray and Tejashwi Yadav should resign as leader of opposition of Bihar. Pashupati Kumar Paras, a minister in Nitish Kumar Cabinet in Bihar, has been elected MP from Hajipur. LJP hopes to replace him too.