Saturday, 10 October 2020 | PNS | New Delhi
After a stream of political heavyweights paid their homage to the late Dalit leader and former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan here, his body was flown to Patna for the last rites to be held on Saturday at 12.30 pm.
Paswan would be accorded a State funeral, and Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad would represent the Central Government at the ceremony in Patna. A decision in this regard was taken at a specially convened meeting of the Union Cabinet this morning. The Cabinet condoled the demise of the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and observed a two-minute silence in his memory.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal has been assigned the additional charge of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution which was held by Paswan.
In Patna, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Modi, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, RJD leader Tejashwi
Yadav and other leaders paid tribute to Paswan, after his mortal remains reached at Patna airport.
However, Paswan’s daughter from his first wife and her husband staged a protest at the Patna Airport after they were not allowed entry inside to receive the body of the departed leader. Paswan’s daughter Asha Devi and her husband Anil Sadhu, who is associated with the RJD, protested in front of the car of Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi when he had come to receive Paswan’s body.
Earlier, President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh , BJP president JP Nadda and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were among those who paid their tribute to the departed leader. Modi, who termed the LJP founder’s death as a “personal loss”, was seen consoling Paswan’s son Chirag and his wife and family members
“Paid tributes to our senior Union Minister Shri Ram Vilas Paswan ji. Paswan ji will always be remembered as a person with gentle behaviour and for his work related to public welfare. May the grace of God be on him and may his family have the strength to bear this loss,” Shah tweeted in Hindi.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi paid tribute to the late Union Minister recalling his “illustrious public life” in a letter to his son Chirag Paswan. In the letter, he said the veteran Dalit leader had left a lasting impact on the country’s politics.
“Dear Chirag, I am deeply saddened by the sudden demise of your father Shri Ram Vilas Paswan. We have lost a veteran leader who left a lasting imprint on politics and public service in both Bihar and our nation,” Rahul said in the letter.
A prominent Dalit face in the national politics after the demise of BSP leader Kanshi Ram and his now ‘low profile’ successor Mayawati, Paswan could read the pulse of politics like no one and he proved it many a times by always being on the side of the winner.
He moved from UPA coalition to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2014 and gauged the country’s electoral move correctly when many veterans had failed to guess the coming of the ‘Modi-era’ in the Indian politics. Though Paswan had then credited the final decision to cross-over to the NDA to his son Chirag, he was blessed with an uncanny sense of timing.
Whether the late leader influenced Chirag’s decision to move out of the NDA in poll-bound Bihar cannot be said with surety but in his death whether the LJP founder could lay the foundation for his son and the party’s political fortunes will be known after the results of the Bihar Assembly polls.
