One of the most experienced legislators across the country, Pashupati Kumar Paras was inducted in the Cabinet slot which fell vacant due to the demise of his brother Ram Vilas Paswan. Paras is embroiled in a bitter power tussle with his nephew Chirag Paswan and has wrested control of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), an ally of the BJP in the NDA.
He has spent the larger part of his career under the shadow of his late brother Ram Vilas Paswan. Paras, who previously headed Lok Janshakti Party’s Bihar unit and is currently the national president of its breakaway faction, began his innings in 1978 as a Janata Party MLA from Alauli in his native Khagaria district, a seat formerly represented by the late Ram Vilas Paswan.
He represented the Assembly segment several times, on tickets of the Janata Dal and later of the party floated by his brother.
He became a member of the Nitish Kumar cabinet in the state in 2017 when the chief minister realigned with the NDA.
The 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw him making his parliamentary debut from Hajipur, a constituency the late Ram Vilas Paswan had nurtured over the decades. The move was seen as indicative of the trust between the two brothers.
Nonetheless, the elevation of his greenhorn nephew Chirag as LJP national president mortified Paras who did not immediately choose to vent his dissatisfaction but hit back and extracted his pound of flesh when the Jamui MP was down in the dumps.