Ram Vilas Paswan
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| Image:Ram Vilas Paswan.jpg | ||
| Born | 5 July 1946 Khagaria, Bihar |
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|---|---|---|
| Residence | Khagaria | |
| Office | MP | |
| Constituency | Hajipur | |
| Successor | Incumbent | |
| Political party | JD(U) | |
| Spouse | Reena Paswan | |
| Children | 1 son and 3 daughters | |
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As of September 26, 2006 |
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Ram Vilas Paswan (born 5 July 1946) is a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. He represents the Hajipur constituency of Bihar and is a member of the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) political party.
He 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.
[edit] Political career
Paswan was elected to the Bihar state assembly in 1969 as a member of the Samyukta Socialist Party ("United Socialist Party"). In 1974, as a follower 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 [1]Janata Party 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.
[edit] Personal life
Paswan spent early years in Shaharbanni village in Khargaria district of Bihar.
He is married to Reena Sharma-Paswan an upper-caste Punjabi from Amritsar, and they have a son and a daughter.
He has two daughters from his is first wife Raj Kumari.
