I support Prashant Kishor’s politics of development: Chirag Paswan

Union minister Chirag Paswan backed Prashant Kishor’s development-focused politics, saying it avoids caste and religious mobilisation. He also criticised Tejashwi Yadav’s absence during student protests and called for a thorough review of Bihar’s decade-old prohibition law

Patna: Union minister Chirag Paswan on Saturday asserted that he was in “support” of the brand of politics done by Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor who “talks about development” instead of trying to mobilise people along religious and caste lines. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief made a statement to the effect while talking to reporters at his party office here, after hoisting the Tricolour on Independence Day.

The NDA partner was asked about Kishor’s stunning victory in the recently held by-poll to Bankipur assembly seat in Bihar, a BJP bastion which has been given up by the party’s national president Nitin Nabin, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP. Paswan replied: “I do support the type of politics Prashant ji does. He talks about development and does not invoke caste and religion. I stand for anybody who promises to take Bihar and Biharis forward.

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The coming years shall be challenging for him as well as the double engine government in the state, as both ought to live up to expectations.” Paswan is the sole BJP ally in Bihar to have words of appreciation for the former political strategist after his electoral debut.

The LJP(RV) leader is also rumoured to have solicited Kishor’s advice in 2020, when he staged a revolt against the then chief minister Nitish Kumar, causing the JD(U)’s tally to crash in assembly polls, but helping him carve a niche for himself shortly after the death of his legendary late father Ram Vilas Paswan. The Hajipur MP, however, chided RJD working president Tejashwi Yadav for “remaining absent during critical moments”, an obvious reference to the failure of the opposition leader to attend the recently held monsoon session which coincided with massive students’ protest in the state.

Making light of Yadav’s call for a “Raj Bhavan march” on Tuesday to protest police repression of the students’ movement, Paswan said, “He should first understand that the Constitution bestows on him some responsibility. If the chief minister is supposed to run the government, it is his job to keep the regime on its toes. He cannot just shoot and scoot”.

Paswan was also asked about the renewed debate on Bihar’s much-touted prohibition policy, following an NCAER study which has termed it as a “failure”, leading critics like Kishor to sharpen the attack on “farzi sharaab bandi” (fake liquor ban).

Stopping short of supporting waiver of prohibition, which the NDA believes fetches votes of women, Paswan said, “There is a need for a thorough review of the liquor ban law which has been in place for a decade”. “We must study the loopholes and find ways to plug these. Plus, I have been of the view that despite the law, there is not adequate public awareness of the ill effects of alcoholism. We need to work on that,” said the Union minister. The sale and consumption of alcohol was banned in April, 2016 by Nitish Kumar who had promised the same to the state’s women during the assembly polls that were held a few months earlier.