Patna: Forty-seven-year-old BJP MLA Lalan Paswan who hails from Ishipur Barahat village of Bhagalpur district has become the eye of the storm in Bihar politics ever since, RJD supremo, Lalu Prasad has allegedly called the Dalit leader on his mobile.
Talks are going around in the political corridor regarding who is Lalan Paswan, the first time MLA from Pirpainti assembly constituency. ETV Bharat spoke to him and came to know many interesting facts about this leader who is an engineer by profession. The 1996 batch B.Tech (Civil) graduate from Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology (MIT) has completed schooling from government high schools in Bhagalpur.
Interestingly, Lalu was once an idol of Paswan, he was a big follower of Lalu at the time of Mandal commission. Paswan had great respect for him, having been inspired by his work towards the downtrodden people.
" Ï don't have any political association with Laluji but yes when I was student in 90's Laluji was once my idol. I was really inspired the way he had raised the issue of social justice. However, It did not take me much time to realise that he was not following the path of democracy. When I was doing my engineering, I had lost all the respect for him when he took steps against reservation for his promotion. It was the first state when the Rabri government took strong steps and implemented it in Bihar, ” Paswan said.
He further said, “Due to the steps taken by the Lalu-Rabri government many promotions turned into demotion. Deputy inspectors got demoted to inspector , senior executive engineers were made executive engineers. For the first time, I saw the real face of Lalu ji, I found him as anti-Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe and Dalits. After that incident, I lost all my respect towards him.”
Those days, Paswan had also got the opportunity to meet Lalu at his residence through someone.“I had a very good relationship with the then RJD MLA of Pirpainti assembly constituency Shobha Kant Mandal who took me to Laluji's residence to wish him on his birthday. I think once or twice I had met Lalu ji,” Paswan said, adding that it was just a courtesy meeting on his birthday. He started his political career in 2000 itself and became a full-time member of the saffron party in 2008.
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Belonging to a poor family with a clean track record, Paswan got associated with the BJP from his student days itself. In his early years, he was also associated with the organisation adhering to the principles of B R Ambedkar. For some time, he was part of the BAMCEF (Backward, ST, ST, OBC) & Minority Communities Employee Federation. He is not a dedicated member of RSS but yes during his college days, he used to visit Sakhas quite often.
Son of late Shivath Paswan who passed away in 2019 is the eldest son among six brothers and one elder sister. His father was head clerk in the PWD and mother Kuleshwari Devi is alive. This is not the first time he has contested election. In 2015 he had contested the assembly poll on BJP ticket but was defeated by RJD candidate Ram Vilas Paswan. However, at the first attempt, he had secured 75000 votes in his kitty.
In his second attempt, in 2020 he defeated the same RJD candidate with the margin of 27,000 votes. This time he secured 97000 votes. Paswan praised BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for promoting him, claiming that he takes care of all the BJP leaders. It was Modi who had first posted a tweet from his official Twitter handle alleging Lalu of calling NDA MLAs with the promise of ministerial berths.
Married to Gunjan Kumari in 2005, Paswan is blessed with a daughter – Garima studying in the sixth standard. Asked about why Lalu chose to call him out of 125 MLAs of NDA on which Paswan said that many others must have got the call but only a few dared to come in the public domain.
“Laluji must have thought that I would be easily broken as I belong to a poor family. When I had filed my nomination, I had only Rs 928 in my bank account. I was the poorest candidate in the Bihar election and the party trusted me by giving the ticket. The party which has given me so much of respect, I can never think in my wildest dream to betray it. My party is my mother and I have come from a very poor family, "Paswan stressed.
Asked about the kind of feeling he has for Lalu, the BJP MLA said,"I am really feeling pity on Laluji for taking such unethical measures to establish his undeserving son."
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