Chhedi Paswan (born 4 February 1956) is a former member of

16th Lok Sabha Members of the 16th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2014 Indian general election. The elections were conducted in 9 phases from 7 April 2014 to 12 May 2014 by the Election Commission of India. The results of the election were declared on 16 M ...

and a former member of

Bihar Legislative Assembly The Bihar Legislative Assembly, also known as the Bihar Vidhan Sabha, is the lower house of the Bihar Legislature where the first elections were held in 1952. The total strength of membership in the Assembly was 331, including one nominated ...

. He represents the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

(BJP) since 2014. At various points, he has been with Janata Party, then its Charan Singh faction, then the reunited

Janata Dal Janata Dal (“People’s Party”) was an Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Janata Party factions, the Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha united on 11 October 1988 on the birth annive ...

Bahujan Samaj Party The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national level political party in India that was formed to represent Bahujans (literally means "community in majority"), referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), a ...

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party ...

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad Yadav (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician and president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). He is a former Chief Minister of Bihar (1990-1997), a former Railway Minister of India (2004-2009), and a former Member of Parliame ...

RJD The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: ''National People's Party'') is an Indian political party, based in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Kerala. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The party's support base has tradit ...

and

Nitish Kumar Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician, who is serving as Chief Minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previous held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. The leader of the Janata Dal (Unit ...

JD(U) Janata Dal (United) ("People’s Party (United)”) abbreviated as JD(U) is an Indian political party with political presence mainly in eastern and north-eastern India. JD(U) is recognised as a state party in the states of Bihar , Aruna ...

Career

He lost 1980 Bihar vidhan sabha election as member of Charan Singh faction from Chenari constituency. Between 1985–89, he was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar, where he represented the Lok Dal party from the Chenari. He was Secretary General of the Yuva Lok Dal in Bihar between 1987–89. Paswan was elected to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-pas ...

, the lower house of the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...

, in 1989 and 1991 as a

candidate from Sasaram constituency, defeating

Meira Kumar Meira Kumar (born 31 March 1945) is an Indian politician and former diplomat. A member of the Indian National Congress, she was the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment from 2004 to 2009, the Minister of Water Resources for a brief per ...

of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

party on both occasions. He lost the 1996 Lok Sabha election to

Muni Lall Muni Lall (6 August 1938 – 23 December 2019) was an Indian politician, minister and civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather t ...

of the BJP. He also lost Lok Sabha election from Sasaram in 1998 as member of NCP and in 1999 as member of BSP. He was then elected to Bihar Vidhan Sabha (2000-2005) from Chenari as member of Lalu Prasad's RJD. He then joined Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and lost election from Mohania seat in February 2005, and won from there in October 2005 and 2010. He defected to the BJP in 2014 from

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People’s Party (United)”) abbreviated as JD(U) is an Indian political party with political presence mainly in eastern and north-eastern India. JD(U) is recognised as a state party in the states of Bihar , Arunachal P ...

after alleging party leader

was acting in an autocratic manner. He contested the

2014 Lok Sabha election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...

and won the Sasaram seat but the victory was set aside by the

Patna High Court The Patna High Court is the High Court of the state of Bihar. It was established on 9 February 1916 and later affiliated under the Government of India Act 1915. The court is based in Patna, the administrative capital of the state of Bihar, I ...

on the grounds that his election affidavit did not mention criminal cases pending against him. The

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India (IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

stayed the order but Paswan's voting rights were not restored, which prevented him from voting in the 2017 Presidential elections.

Personal life

Paswan was born on 4 February 1956 in Sasaram to Ramchandra Paswan and Laxmina Devi. He was awarded a M.A. degree in Labour and Social Welfare from the

Patna University Patna University is a public state university in Patna, Bihar, India. It was established on 1 October 1917 during the British Raj. It is the first university in Bihar and the seventh oldest university in the Indian subcontinent in the modern er ...

. He is married to Premkali Devi. He has three sons and two daughters.

References

1956 births Living people India MPs 1989–1991 India MPs 1991–1996 Lok Sabha members from Bihar People from Sasaram People from Rohtas District India MPs 2014–2019 Janata Dal politicians Lok Dal politicians Samata Party politicians Janata Dal (United) politicians Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Bihar Rashtriya Janata Dal politicians Bahujan Samaj Party politicians Patna University alumni India MPs 2019–present {{Bihar-BJP-politician-stub