If exit polls hold true, Chirag may fulfil father’s wish

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 9

If the actual results of the Bihar elections mirror the exit poll projections, Chirag Paswan of the LJP may be able to fulfil his late father Ram Vilas Paswan’s long-standing dream of unseating incumbent Nitish Kumar from power in the state.

Senior Paswan, who had died just a few days before the Bihar poll, was known to have kept grudge against Kumar since the second Assembly poll in the state that took place in November 2005.

Kumar, the NDA face at that time, with the help of pharmaceutical baron King Mahendra, managed to split 17 MLAs of the LJP. Since then, Ram Vilas always sided with the parties that opposed Kumar. In 2010, the LJP contested the election in alliance with Lalu Prasad’s RJD. In 2015, when Kumar switched sides to join hands with Lalu Prasad against the BJP, the LJP went with the saffron party. But on both occasions he failed to damage wily Nitish Kumar.

Now, his son Chirag decided to go alone.