Mail News Service
Chatra, Oct 21: The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) has officially nominated former MLA Janardan Paswan as its candidate for the Chatra seat in the upcoming Jharkhand assembly elections. The announcement was made by the party’s Jharkhand state president, Virendra Pradhan, who confirmed that LJP (Ram Vilas) supremo Chirag Paswan handed over the letter and symbol to Paswan after he joined the party, following the allocation of the Chatra seat.
Janardan Paswan has a notable political history, having served as an MLA from Chatra twice. His membership with the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) was formalized in Delhi, in the presence of party’s national general secretary Abdul Khaliq and Jharkhand state president Virendra Pradhan. Following his induction, Paswan met with Chirag Paswan, who presented him with the party symbol.
Paswan’s political journey began in 1995 when he won the Chatra assembly seat as a Janata Dal candidate. He was re-elected in 2009 representing the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Although he contested the 2014 assembly elections on the RJD ticket, he faced defeat against BJP’s Jaiprakash Singh Bhokta. The Chatra assembly seat is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC), and its political dynamics are also influenced by the adjacent state of Bihar.
Currently, Satyanand Bhokta serves as the RJD MLA from Chatra and is a minister in the Hemant Soren government. However, with the Bhokta caste now classified as Scheduled Tribe (ST), Satyanand Bhokta will be ineligible to contest from Chatra this election cycle.
In a broader context, the BJP, AJSU Party, Janata Dal (United), and LJP (R) have united to contest the elections as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BJP will contest 68 of the 81 assembly seats in Jharkhand, while the AJSU Party will field candidates in 10 seats, the JDU in 2, and the LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest one seat.
