Ram Vilas Paswan: master political pulse reader
Ram Vilas Paswan, Union minister and a prominent Dalit leader, passed away at a Delhi hospital on Thursday evening, days after he underwent heart surgery. He was 74.
His son Chirag, who has taken over the reins of the Lok Janshakti Party floated by his father, tweeted about his death. “Miss you Papa,” he tweeted. “Papa, you are no more in this world but I’m sure you’re with me, wherever you are.”
Ram Vilas’s death comes in the backdrop of the upcoming Bihar elections in which the LJP has under his son decided to contest alone, aiming to oust Janata Dal United chief Nitish Kumar from the chief minister’s chair.
Ram Vilas was the eldest of the Bihar triumvirate — which included Lalu Prasad and Nitish — that has lorded over the politics of the state over the last three decades.
All three, part of the socialist family, had emerged out of the anti-Congress movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan or JP in the seventies. The three had started out together but driven by ambitions of power politics, split and floated their separate parties.