Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan Passes At 74

by Shatakshi Gupta

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has died at the age of 74, on Thursday. He recently underwent heart surgery in a Delhi hospital. His son and LJP president Chirag Paswan gave this information on Twitter, he tweeted, “Papa …. You are no longer in this world but I know you are always with me wherever you are, Miss you Papa.”

 Ram Vilas Paswan was ill for a long time.  He had spent a long time in politics.  Ram Vilas Paswan was the only people who made his place in the ‘cabinet’ of 6 Prime Ministers. 

Ramvilas Paswan, who was a veteran of Indian Politics, first came to Bihar Assembly in 1969 as a member of the United Socialist Party from a reserved constituency.  In 1974, he became general secretary of Lok Dal as a strong follower of Raj Narayan and JP.  He has been personally close to prominent leaders of the Emergency like Raj Narayan, Karpoori Thakur and Satyendra Narayan Sinha.  He remained prominent in politics of Bihar and the country for almost five decades.

 Born in 1946 in Khagaria, Bihar, Ram Vilas Paswan set out on a journey through a small area to the Delhi. He completed a Master’s and a law degree, passed the Bihar civil service examination, and was selected to be a Deputy Superintendent of Police, but he did not accept it and rather entered into politics. After this, he never looked back. 

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He dominated the politics of Bihar and the country for nearly five decades. Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav named Ram Vilas Paswan a ‘meteorologist’.  Ram Vilas Paswan was adept at changing his decisions for politics with the flow of politics and he was also successful in this.  As a result, he worked with six Prime Ministers.

 He was a very simple and soft-spoken person.  He won several elections from Bihar’s Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency, but twice he set the record for winning by the maximum margin.