Latest news with #Paswan
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Amid Bihar nepotism row, a look at LJP's churn: Paswan's brothers to rise of Chirag's brothers-in-law
The brothers-in-law of RJD president Lalu Prasad, Aniruddh Prasad or Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Yadav, were once known as influential RJD leaders in Bihar. Both Sadhu, former Lok Sabha member, and Subhash, ex-Rajya Sabha MP, are the younger brothers of Lalu's wife and ex-Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, who fell out with Lalu after 2010 and were since marginalised in state politics. With RJD leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, recently raking up the issue of nepotism while alleging that several NDA leaders have cornered various plum government positions for their relatives, such as brothers-in-law or sons-in-law, the political ascendancy of some of them has come into focus now. Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) founder and ex-Union minister, late Ram Vilas Paswan, had often drawn criticism for promoting his younger brothers and ex-MPs, Pashupati Kumar Paras and Ramchandra Paswan (who passed away in 2019), in state politics. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the LJP won six seats in Bihar, three of which were bagged by the members of the Paswan family, which included Paswan from Hajipur, son Chirag Paswan from Jamui, and Ramchandra from Samastipur. Paswan's first wife Rajkumari Devi lives in his ancestral Shaharbanni village in Khagaria. Their two daughters, Asha and Usha, are married, respectively, to Dhananjay alias Mrinal Paswan and Anil alias Sadhu Paswan. Must R LJP(Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan and his elder sister Nisha are the children of Paswan and his second wife Reena. Following Paswan's demise in 2020, Chirag suffered another setback in 2021 when his uncle Pashupati split the LJP with the party's five out of six Lok Sabha MPs joining him. Pashupati became the head of the breakaway party outfit called National Lok Janshakti Party (NLJP) with Chirag taking charge of the LJP(RV). Subsequently, Chirag started visiting Shaharbanni more frequently to meet his stepmother Rajkumari. When she had been engaged in a property dispute with Pashupati early this year, Chirag made it a point to visit her in the village. This sent out a signal to Pashupati that Chirag was backing his stepmother. Chirag also distanced himself from his cousin Prince Paswan, who had become the Samastipur MP after the death of his father Ramchandra. Prince had also turned a rebel by joining the NLJP, which is now struggling for survival after being snubbed by the NDA. When Chirag, after his return to the NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, looked to contest from his father's traditional constituency Hajipur, he decided to give the LJP(RV) ticket to his brother-in-law Arun Bharti, husband of Nisha, from Jamui – the seat Chirag represented for two terms from 2014 to 2024. While Chirag clinched his father's bastion Hajipur by a huge margin, Arun Bharti also had a smooth sailing in Jamui. Bharti, who has an MBA degree, also belongs to a political family with his mother Jyoti having been an MLC twice. Bharti had been working as a business entrepreneur in Delhi till Chirag convinced him to contest the 2024 parliamentary polls. After the LJP(RV)'s success in the Lok Sabha polls, with the party winning all five seats it contested, and Chirag's induction into the Cabinet of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government 3.0, Bharti became a close confidant of the party chief. Recently, it was Bharti who first said, in a social media post, that the LJP(RV) workers wanted Chirag to contest the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections and that too from a general seat 'so that the message goes out that he is now ready to lead the entire Bihar and not just one section'. While Chirag kept people guessing, a buzz was created around the LJP (RV)'s projection of 'nav netritva (new leadership)' for Bihar. On June 8, addressing a rally in Arah, Chirag announced that he would contest the Bihar Assembly polls from a seat that 'people decide for him', ending weeks of speculation over his return to state politics. LJP(RV) sources said Bharti is likely to play a 'bigger role' in the Bihar polls. 'While Bharti has been asked to keep focusing on his Jamui constituency, he has also been given additional responsibility to strategise for the party for the Assembly polls', said an LJP (RV) leader. On his part, Bharti calls himself a 'soldier of LJP(RV) and Chirag Paswan'. In the spotlight now, is also Chirag's another brother-in-law Mrinal Paswan, who has been the LJP(RV) national general secretary after having been a government employee in the excise department for 26 years. As part of the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government's recent move to reconstitute several commissions, Mrinal Paswan was appointed as the Bihar State Scheduled Caste Commission's chairperson. Devendra Kumar Manjhi, son-in-law of HAM (S) chief and Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, was made this Commission's vice chairperson. Amid Tejashwi's bid to attack the Nitish government over nepotism, Mrinal said: 'I now hold a responsible position and would not react to any political allegations'. Hailing Chirag, he also said that he would try to redress the grievances of Dalits in his role as the SC panel head.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
2013 rape-murder case: Calcutta HC commutes convict's death penalty to life term with no remission for 50 years, cites mild mental disability
KOLKATA: Calcutta High Court on Tuesday commuted the death penalty of a 45-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering a two-and-a-half-year-old child in Kidderpore in 2013 — stating that the crime did not 'fall under the rarest-of-rare' category — and sentenced him to life in jail without remission for 50 years. The HC division bench of justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi also took into account the psychological evaluation report of the convict that said he suffered from 'mild mental disability'. In the intervening night of July 20 and 21, 2013, stable hand Suresh Paswan, then employed with Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC), had abducted the toddler from a shanty under the Kidderpore ramp of Vidyasagar Setu where she lived with her grandmother, sexually assaulted her, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain near the northern gate of RCTC. The body was discovered by a couple of slum kids on the morning of July 21. After the child's death, her mother, who suffered from psychiatric illnesses, also went missing. Paswan, who then lived in a shed that housed Race Course stable hands, fled to his village in Bihar and was nabbed from there a day later. An autopsy report showed that the child's body bore 17 injuries, establishing that she was subjected to brutal sexual assault. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cel mai popular echipament de sudură din zonă siginificant Află mai multe Undo She bled from the nostrils and ears and her death was due to manual strangulation, the report said. On March 28, 2019, a city sessions court sentenced Paswan, then 41, to death for the murder of the toddler and awarded him 20 years in jail for rape under Pocso. On Tuesday, the HC division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi upheld Paswan's conviction but did not find it a 'rarest of rare case' to justify death sentence. 'The appellant is aged 45 years and comes from a very poor economic background. He was married, but his wife left the appellant. He used to reside alone in the horse stable. The circumstances of the case do not suggest that the offence committed was pre-planned or was an outcome of any rivalry or enmity with the family of the victim. As the Supreme Court held in many cases, every murder is gruesome but does not justify the death penalty. In any case, we are not in a position to return a finding that the offence involved in the case at hand falls under the category of 'rarest of rare cases' to justify the punishment of death,' the HC held. Paswan's psychological evaluation report suggested his current intellectual functioning fell under the category of mild mental disability, which could be attributed to his lack of education. A socio-economic report showed Paswan was an only child. His father died before his birth and he was brought up by his mother, who worked as an agricultural labourer. 'His life has been reeling under poverty,' the HC observed. 'It is trite law that imposition of the death penalty should be resorted to if the circumstances of the case and the evidence led therein leave an impression that the option of imposition of any other penalty stands foreclosed. The possibility of future reformation is also a relevant factor to be taken into consideration while awarding the death sentence to a convict,' the bench observed.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
HC commutes rapist-killer's death penalty to 50-year term
KOLKATA: Calcutta high court on Tuesday commuted the death penalty of a 45-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering a two-and-a-half-year-old child in Kolkata in 2013, ruling that the crime did not fall under the 'rarest of rare' category, and sentenced him to life behind bars without remission for 50 years, reports Srishti Lakhotia. HC also based its order on psychological evaluation report of the convict that found him suffering from a "mild mental disability". On the intervening night of July 20 and 21, 2013, Suresh Paswan had abducted a toddler from a shanty under Kidderpore ramp of Vidyasagar Setu where she lived with her grandmother, sexually assaulted her, strangled her and dumped the body in a drain. The body was discovered by some slum children on July 21. Paswan had fled to his village in Bihar and was nabbed from there a day later. An autopsy report showed the child's body bore 17 injuries, establishing that she was subjected to brutal sexual assault. She bled from the nostrils and ears and her death was due to strangulation, the report said. On March 28, 2019, a sessions court sentenced Paswan to death for the toddler's murder, and awarded him 20 years in jail for rape under the Pocso Act . A division bench on Tuesday upheld his conviction, but did not find the crime merited death penalty.
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Business Standard
6 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Bihar election battle: Seat-sharing dilemma for NDA and Opposition
There is now fresh speculation that in the upcoming Assembly polls, likely to be in October, Paswan's LJP (Ram Vilas) could throw up a surprise Archis Mohan Listen to This Article A mere 12,768 votes of the total 41.43 million polled separated the winner and the loser in the three-phase Bihar Assembly polls held in 2020. The election was held when waves of migrant workers were forced to return back to the state in the wake Covid-19 pandemic. The Janata Dal (United) JD(U)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 125 of 243 seats with a combined vote share of 37.26 per cent, defeating the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led 'Mahagathbandhan' that secured 110 seats with 37.23 per cent vote share. However, what skipped the headlines was that the BJP had
Time of India
14-06-2025
- Time of India
YouTuber held for Rs 82L fraud against retd EPFO official
Kanpur: The cybercrime unit of Kanpur Police arrested the mastermind of a gang that defrauded a retired Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) officer of Rs 82.30 lakh. The accused, identified as Dheeraj Paswan of Parasa village in Deoria district, was arrested on Friday. According to Inspector Sunil Verma of the cybercrime station, the gang initially came into contact through the online game Free Fire, and later began orchestrating digital frauds using methods they allegedly learned from YouTube. The victim, Vinod Kumar Jha, a resident of Panki in Kanpur, filed a complaint on April 6 after discovering the massive fraud. Acting on the complaint, police earlier arrested three gang members- Raubi Kumar, Jitendra Kumar, and Ravindra Singh- from Aligarh. Their interrogation led to the identification and eventual arrest of Paswan, who is believed to be the key accused behind the financial transactions. Paswan allegedly created and managed a Spice Money account to facilitate laundering of the stolen money. Funds were routed through various bank accounts, invested in cryptocurrency and the stock market, and later divided among the group. Police also recovered an iPhone and several mobile phones from Paswan. Interestingly, he also maintained a YouTube channel with over three lakh subscribers, where he posted educational and entertainment content. Investigators said he tried to sell the channel after becoming involved in the fraud. Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
