Ram Vilas Paswan
Ram Vilas Paswan (born
July 5,
1946) is a
Dalit Indian politician from the state of
Bihar. He currently leads the
Lok Janshakti Party which he founded in 2000 and is a member of the Indian
Parliament from
Hajipur, Bihar.
Paswan was elected to the Bihar state assembly in
1969 as a member of the
Samyukta Socialist Party (
"United Socialist Party"). In
1974, he became a close colleague of
Jayaprakash Narayan and became the
general secretary of the
Lok Dal.
In
1975, when
emergency was proclaimed in India, he was arrested and spent the entire period in jail.
In
1977, when released, he became a member of the
Janata Dal and won election to
Parliament for the first time on its ticket. He was re-elected to the 7th
Lok Sabha in
1980.
In
1983, he established the
Dalit Sena an organization for
Dalit emancipation and welfare.
Paswan was re-elected to the 9th Lok Sabha in
1989 and was appointed Union
Minister of
Labour and Welfare in the
Vishwanath Pratap Singh government. He has been a member of Lok Sabha since then to date (as of
2005).
In
1996, he even led the ruling alliance or
Proposition in the Lok Sabha as the
Prime Ministers were members of the
Rajya Sabha.
This was also the year when he first became the Union
Railway Minister. He continued to hold that post till
1998. Thereafter, he was the Union
Communications Minister from October
1999 to September
2001 when he was shifted to the
Coal Ministry, which portfolio he held till April
2002.
In
2000 Paswan broke from the
Janata Dal (United), to form the
Lok Janshakti Party (
LJP). Following the
2004 Lok Sabha elections, Paswan joined the
United Progressive Alliance government and was made the Union Minister for
Steel &
Fertilizers.
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 Laloo Yadav, whom he accused of being extremely corrupt, or the right-wing
National Democratic Alliance thereby creating a stalemate.
This stalemate was broken when Nitish Kumar succeeded in persuading members of Paswan's party to defect; to prevent the formation of a right-wing 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 the
November 2005 Bihar state elections, Paswan's third-alliance was utterly decimated; the Laloo Yadav-Congress alliance reduced to a minority and the NDA formed the new government.
Paswan has declared that the Bihar state elections has no influence on the
Central Government, which will continue with both him and Laloo Yadav as ministers.
*
Profile on Ambedkar.org*
Profile on HindustanTimes.com dated June 2004*
Homepage on Lok Sabha website
