I am not positioning myself as future CM of Bihar

Union cabinet minister and LJP (RV) chief Chirag Paswan took everyone by surprise by his recent announcement that he wished to contest the Bihar assembly elections later this year.

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For the first time, his Lok Janshakti Party will contest in a pre-poll alliance with the ruling Janata Dal (United). While Paswan's party has no presence in the current assembly, his party won all five seats it contested in last year's general elections. The 42-year-old son of LJP founder and former minister, the late Ram Vilas Paswan, has not been afraid to chart his own path, sometimes voicing opinions that may be different to that of his alliance partner BJP. He spoke to Sunetra Choudhury and Abhishek Angad about the reason he wants to contest, the Waqf law, and the proposal to amend the Preamble to the Constitution.

You dropped a bombshell by saying that you are going to contest. What did the Prime Minister and Amit Shah say in response to this?

I have not spoken to them yet. I have expressed my wish that I want to go back to my state because this is my third term as a Member of Parliament and over the past 11 years, I have realised that the kind of vision that I have for my state — Bihar first, Bihari first — is not possible (to achieve) living in Delhi. Also, we have seen these experiments by the BJP, where they have fielded their MPs and even their central ministers for state elections, which really benefitted them. So, I have asked for a survey to analyse whether me contesting is beneficial for the party and for the alliance.

What do you have to say to those people who say this is basically setting up Chirag Paswan to become a future CM candidate?

To be honest, I'm not. This is not my agenda. I'm not looking for any post or positioning myself as a future CM. There is absolutely no vacancy in 2025. My current chief minister (Nitish Kumar), under his leadership, we're going to enter the elections and we will be having a historic win this time. So there's no vacancy this time. And even for the future.

But deputy CM?