Chirag Paswan: The New 'Dalit Icon' From Bihar's Hajipur

The emerging ‘Dalit icon’ of Bihar, Chirag Paswan has won from Hajipur Lok Sabha seat in a record-making win for the Paswan family. But an even bigger victory for Paswan is that his party, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) emerged victorious in all the five seats it contested (Vaishali, Samastipur, Khagaria, Jamui, and Hajipur).

Chirag Paswan won the reserved Hajipur seat by securing 6,15,718 votes, defeating his nearest rival and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Shivchandra Ram with a substantial margin of 1.7 lakh votes. Coming up as the runner-up, Ram secured 4.4 lakh votes.

Paswan previously won the Jamui Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019. Taking on his father Ram Vilas Paswan”s legacy further, Chirag has left his own Jamui seat in the hands of brother-in-law Arun Bharti. The Hajipur Lok Sabha seat has a special place for the Paswan family.

Former president of LJP and union minister Ram Vilas Paswan first secured the seat in 1977. Since then, he has won the seat eight times. After his last win in 2014, his brother, Pashupati Kumar Paras, took on the baton and won the seat in 2019 on an LJP ticket.

After the announcement of seat-sharing arrangements among the NDA allies was revealed, Chirag’s party received five seats while his uncle’s faction received none. Although Pashupati Kumar did resign from the Union cabinet, citing “injustice” by the party, he extended his support for the NDA and PM Modi.

Chirag is the first president of the LJP (RV) since 2021. Prior to that, he was the second president of LJP from 2019 to 2021.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate and veteran leader Shiv Chandra Ram is a two-time MLA from the Hajipur seat. The INDIA alliance’s Dalit candidate is known to be a close aid of party president Lalu Prasad Yadav.