Ram Vilas Paswan (5 July 19468 October 2020) was an

Indian politician Politics of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution. India is a parliamentary democratic secular republic in which the president of India is the head of state & first citizen of India and the prime minister of India i ...

from

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...

and the Cabinet Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the first and

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...

Modi ministries. Paswan was also the president of the

Lok Janshakti Party The Lok Janshakti Party ( LJP, "People’s Manpower Party") was a state political party mainly based in the state of Bihar, India. The party was formed in 2000 when Ram Vilas Paswan split from Janata Dal. The party had a considerable followin ...

, nine-times

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

member and two-time

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

MP. He started his political career as member of

Samyukta Socialist Party Samyukta Socialist Party (; SSP), was a political party in India from 1964 to 1972. SSP was formed through a split in the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) in 1964. In 1972, SSP was reunited with PSP, forming the Socialist Party. The General Secre ...

and was elected to the

Bihar Legislative Assembly The Bihar Legislative Assembly, also known as the Bihar Vidhan Sabha, is the lower house of the Bihar Legislature where the first elections were held in 1952. The total strength of membership in the Assembly was 331, including one nominated ...

in 1969. Later, Paswan joined

Lok Dal Lokdal or Lok Dal is an Indian political party based on agriculture policies, founded by former prime minister of India Charan Singh. See also * Girraj Kishore Mahaur, former MLA of Lok Dal * Lok Dal (Charan) * Rashtriya Lok Dal Rashtr ...

upon its formation in 1974, and became its general secretary. He opposed the

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

, and was arrested during this period. He first entered the

in 1977, as a

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

member from

Hajipur Hajipur (, ) is the headquarters and largest city of Vaishali district of the state of Bihar in India. Hajipur is the 16th most populous city of Bihar, besides being the second-fastest developing city, next to Patna. It had a total population ...

constituency, and was elected again in 1980, 1989, 1991 (from Rosera), 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014. In 2000, Paswan formed the

(LJP) as its president. Subsequently, in 2004, he joined the ruling

United Progressive Alliance United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single pa ...

government and remained a Union Minister in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and

Ministry of Steel The Ministry of Steel is an executive branch agency of the Government of India that is responsible for formulating all policies regarding steel production, distribution and pricing in India. As of July 2021, the ministry is headed by a Secretary ...

. He was posthumously awarded India's third highest civilian award the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

in 2021. He was known for holding cabinet positions under 7 governments. He was known as the weatherman of Indian politics.

Early life and education

Paswan was born in a Dusad a

Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

family on 5 July 1946 in Shaharbanni,

Khagaria district Khagaria district is an administrative district in the state of Bihar in India. The district headquarters are located at Khagaria. Earlier it was a part of Munger District as a sub-division that was created in 1943–44. It was upgraded to the ...

to Jamun Paswan and Siya Devi. Paswan held

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...

and

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degrees from Kosi College, Khagaria and

Patna University Patna University is a public state university in Patna, Bihar, India. It was established on 1 October 1917 during the British Raj. It is the first university in Bihar and the seventh oldest university in the Indian subcontinent in the modern ...

. He had been selected as a DSP in Bihar police in 1969.

Political career

Paswan was elected to the Bihar state legislative assembly in 1969 as a member of the

(''"United Socialist Party"'') from Alauli, a reserved constituency. He lost 1972 Vidhan Sabha election from Alauli to Shri Mishri Sada of Congress. In 1974, as an ardent follower of Raj Narain and

Jayaprakash Narayan Jayaprakash Narayan (; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), popularly referred to as JP or ''Lok Nayak'' ( Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader. He is remembered for l ...

Paswan became the general secretary of the

. He was personally close to the prominent leaders of anti-emergency like Raj Narain,

Karpoori Thakur Karpoori Thakur (24 January 1924 – 17 February 1988) was an Indian politician from the Bihar state. He was popularly known as Jan Nayak (Hindi for people's hero). He served as the Chief Minister of Bihar from December 1970 to June 1971 (Socia ...

and

Satyendra Narayan Sinha Satyendra Narayan Sinha (12 July 1917 – 4 September 2006) was an Indian politician and statesman, participant in the Indian independence movement, a leading light of Jaya Prakash Narayan's ‘ ''complete revolution''’ movement during the E ...

. In 1975, when

was proclaimed in India, Paswan was arrested and spent the entire period in jail. On being released in 1977, he became a member of the

and won election to

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

for the first time on its ticket from

with a record margin (later broken) of 424,000 and 89.3% votes which is perhaps an all-time record for General Election in India. Former PM Narasimha Rao got a higher percentage of vote in a 1991 bye-poll. When Janata Party split in 1979, he joined Charan Singh's faction. Paswan was re-elected to the 7th

in 1980 from Hajipur constituency as Janata Party (Socialist) candidate. In 1983, he established the Dalit Sena, an organisation for

emancipation and welfare. The Dalit Sena was later headed by his brother Ram Chandra Paswan. Later it was renamed as

Scheduled Caste The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

sena in a vein similar to the Scheduled Caste federation established by Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Paswan lost 1984 Lok Sabha election from Hajipur. Paswan was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha in 1989 and was appointed Union Minister of Labour and Welfare in the

Vishwanath Pratap Singh Vishwanath Pratap Singh (25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008), shortened to V. P. Singh, was an Indian politician who was the 7th Prime Minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda. He is India's only prime minister t ...

government. He was elected to Lok Sabha from Rosera (Lok Sabha constituency) in 1991, the only time between 1977 and 2014 when he did not contest from Hajipur. In 1996, he won again from Hajipur, and he even led the ruling alliance or

Proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...

in the Lok Sabha as the

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

was a member of the

. This was also the year when Paswan first became the Union Railway Minister. He continued to hold that post till 1998. Thereafter, Paswan was the Union

Communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

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 Janata Dal (“People’s Party”) was an Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Janata Party factions, the Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha united on 11 October 1988 on the birth annivers ...

, to form the

(LJP). He resigned as minister and left the ruling NDA in 2002 after developing differences with BJP. Following the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Paswan joined the

government and was made the Union Minister in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and

. 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 Lalu Prasad Yadav, whom he accused of being extremely corrupt, or the right-wing

National Democratic Alliance National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a centre-right to right-wing and conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was founded in 1998 and currently controls the government of In ...

thereby creating a stalemate. This stalemate was broken when

Nitish Kumar Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician, who is serving as Chief Minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previous held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. The leader of the Janata Dal (Unit ...

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 India, President's rule is the suspension of state government and imposition of direct Union government rule in a state. Under Article 356 of the Constitution of India, if a state government is unable to function according to Constitutional ...

. 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. Politicians campaing in Mumbai - Flickr - Al Jazeera English

Politicians campaing in Mumbai - Flickr - Al Jazeera English

Paswan has declared that the Bihar state elections have no influence on the

Central Government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or del ...

, 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 A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or ...

formed since 1996 (as of 2015). He was also part of all the national coalitions (the

United Front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...

, the

and the

), which have formed the Indian Government from 1996 to 2015. For the

2009 Indian general election 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

Paswan forged an alliance with

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad Yadav (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician and president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). He is a former Chief Minister of Bihar (1990-1997), a former Railway Minister of India (2004-2009), and a former Member of Parliam ...

and his

Rashtriya Janata Dal The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: ''National People's Party'') is an Indian political party, based in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Kerala. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The party's support base has tradit ...

, while dumping their erstwhile coalition partner and leader of the

, the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

from the new alliance. The duo was later joined by Mulayam Singh's

Samajwadi Party The Samajwadi Party ( SP; translation: ''Socialist Party'', founded 4 October 1992) is a socialist political party in India, headquartered in New Delhi but mainly based in Uttar Pradesh, with significant presence in other states as well. With a ...

and were declared the Fourth Front. Paswan lost the elections from

to the

's Ram Sundar Das, a former chief minister of

for the first time in 33 years. His party the

was not able to win any seats in the

15th Lok Sabha Members of the 15th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2009 general election in India. It was dissolved on 18 May 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee. Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won 44 more seats than the previou ...

, while his coalition partner Yadav and his party too failed to perform well and were reduced to 4 seats. Paswan was elected as member of

16th Lok Sabha Members of the 16th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2014 Indian general election. The elections were conducted in 9 phases from 7 April 2014 to 12 May 2014 by the Election Commission of India. The results of the election were declared on 16 M ...

after the

2014 Indian general election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...

from

constituency when he contested in alliance with BJP, while his son Chirag Paswan won from

Jamui Jamui is a town and a municipality in Jamui district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is the district headquarter of Jamui district. Jamui was formed as a district on 21 February 1991 as a result of its separation from Munger. It is part of ...

constituency also in Bihar. Paswan was again given charge of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in May 2014, which continued in

Second Modi ministry The Second Ministry of Narendra Modi is the Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi that was formed after the 2019 general election which was held in seven phases in 2019. The results of the election were announc ...

in 2019. He was elected to Rajya Sabha in 2019 with the help of BJP though his own party had only 2 MLAs in the state assembly.

Personal life

Paswan married Rajkumari Devi in 1960s. In 2014, he disclosed that he had divorced her in 1981, after his Lok Sabha nomination papers were challenged. Paswan had two daughters from first wife, Usha and Asha. In 1982, he married Reena Sharma, an airhostess. They had a son and a daughter. His son Chirag Kumar Paswan is an actor-turned-politician. He was often called a dynast. He brought his brothers

Pashupati Kumar Paras Pashupati Kumar Paras (born 12 July 1952) is an Indian politician who is currently serving as the Minister of Food Processing Industries in the Government of India. He is currently serving as a member of Lok Sabha from Hajipur (Lok Sabha const ...

and Ram Chandra Paswan into politics. Of the six seats that the LJP won in 2019, three were from his family – son Chirag, and brothers Pashupati Kumar Paras and Ram Chandra Paswan. Ram Chandra's son Prince Raj succeeded his father upon his death.

Death

Paswan died on 8 October 2020, and his death was confirmed by his son,

Chirag Paswan Chirag Kumar Paswan is an Indian politician, former actor and president of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) He is the son of late Member of Parliament and Union Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan. Early life and acting career His father, a Biha ...

. Paswan had undergone heart surgery and was hospitalized for a few weeks prior to his death. Paswan was cremated in Patna on 10 October 2020. His body was brought to Janardan Ghat in the Digha locality from his residence in Shri Krishna Puri, about 3 km away, for the last rites.

References

External links

*
Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website

Homepage on Lok Sabha website

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan passes away
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paswan, Ram Vilas 1946 births 2020 deaths Lok Janshakti Party politicians V. P. Singh administration India MPs 1977–1979 India MPs 1980–1984 India MPs 1989–1991 India MPs 1991–1996 India MPs 1996–1997 India MPs 1998–1999 India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2004–2009 Rajya Sabha members from Bihar India MPs 2014–2019 Lok Sabha members from Bihar People from Khagaria district Samyukta Socialist Party politicians Janata Dal politicians Janata Party politicians Janata Dal (United) politicians Members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly Leaders of the Lok Sabha Dalit activists Dalit politicians Narendra Modi ministry Bihari politicians Railway Ministers of India Labour ministers of India Steel Ministers of India Coal Ministers of India Mining ministers of India Members of the Cabinet of India