Chirag Paswan’s UP gamble: Why PM Modi’s ‘Hanuman’ is flexing his muscle against allies | India News
NEW DELHI: Chirag Paswan once described himself as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Hanuman”. Six years later, the LJP (Ram Vilas) chief offered another approach of his politics: “I can stand up to my government ... I am in the alliance but I am not the BJP.”This distinction becomes relevant as he prepares to take his party into the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. LJP(RV) has announced that it will contest the polls and is preparing for all 403 constituencies, while leaving open whether it will eventually contest alone or as part of an alliance.
We want this to take the form of a legal right for the youth. Wherever exams are cancelled, students should receive reimbursement for their travel expenses, arrangements for their accommodation, and provisions for their food. We have firmly presented this stance of the party on the floor of the House as well.
Chirag Paswan
The UP move comes after a significant change in Chirag Paswan’s political position. In 2020, the undivided LJP broke with the NDA in Bihar, contested 135 seats and targeted Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), while maintaining its support for PM Modi. Its slogan captured the strategy: “Modi se bair nahi, Nitish teri khair nahi.” The party won only one seat, but its 5.66% vote share had a measurable impact on the results.Since then, LJP(RV) has moved from being a marginal alliance partner to a more consequential NDA component. It won all five Lok Sabha seats it contested in Bihar in 2024, giving Chirag Paswan a 100% strike rate, and in the 2025 assembly election it contested 29 seats under the NDA arrangement and won 19. The BJP and JD(U) contested 101 seats each, while LJP(RV) secured 29.That progression provides the context for the 403-seat announcement. Chirag Paswan now has five Lok Sabha MPs, 19 MLAs in Bihar and a Union cabinet position. The question is whether that political weight can be extended beyond Bihar.
The 403-seat gamble
The latest phase of the UP push took shape in September, when Paswan launched his party’s youth outreach in Prayagraj. At the “Youth Bole Toh” programme, he spoke about education, employment, skills and greater youth participation in politics, and announced plans for a National Youth Commission.On September 28, he made the electoral plan explicit: “There is no doubt that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.”The following day, he said the response in Prayagraj had strengthened his confidence in the UP plan. LJP(RV) MP Rajesh Verma subsequently said the party was preparing for all 403 seats, while making clear that the eventual alliance arrangement would be decided later.
Chirag Paswan on law and order in Bihar.
The 2020 flashback
The 2020 Bihar assembly election was the debut test of Chirag Paswan’s leadership. His father, Ram Vilas Paswan, had just died a few days ago.The LJP won only one seat but emerged as a significant factor in 54 constituencies where its vote total was greater than the victory margin. In 25 seats where JD(U) finished second, LJP’s vote exceeded the winning margin. Chirag was explicit about the objective, saying after the election: “My main idea in the election was to make the BJP stronger. I am happy with the impact I have had in this election.”The BJP finished with 74 seats in that election, ahead of JD(U)’s 43 for the first time. The episode demonstrated that LJP did not need to win seats itself to affect the relative strength of its larger alliance partner.The 2025 Bihar election showed the other side of the equation. LJP(RV) was no longer operating as a spoiler outside the alliance. It contested 29 seats as an NDA partner and won 19, converting its electoral relevance into representation inside the alliance.UP could now test both models: LJP(RV) as an alliance partner with an electoral base of its own, and LJP(RV) as a potential vote-splitter in constituencies where even a few thousand votes can decide the outcome.
The Dalit arithmetic
The potential constituency is significant, but far from straightforward.The BSP won no seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in UP and polled around 9.4%. At the same time, the SP expanded its support among Dalit voters as part of its broader PDA coalition. A Lokniti-CSDS post-poll analysis showed a sharp difference between Jatav and non-Jatav Dalit voting patterns, with the BSP retaining much stronger support among Jatavs than among non-Jatav Dalits.For Chirag Paswan, the challenge is therefore larger than taking the Paswan identity from Bihar to UP. Pasis, Valmikis, Khatiks and other non-Jatav communities have distinct political histories and local calculations. Whether LJP(RV) can persuade sections of these voters that it is a credible political vehicle will determine whether its UP expansion produces votes or merely an organisational footprint.The impact could also vary by constituency. A modest LJP(RV) vote could matter in a close BJP-SP contest if it draws disproportionately from one side’s potential support base. But unlike Bihar in 2020, there is no single obvious target. The BJP, SP, BSP and Congress have overlapping social coalitions, making the direction of any vote transfer harder to predict.
Why UP and why now?
The UP expansion also fits Paswan’s attempt to establish LJP(RV) beyond its Bihar base. The party has already demonstrated that it can operate outside the state: in the 2023 Nagaland assembly election, it contested 16 seats, won two and finished runner-up in eight, securing more than 8.6% of the vote.But UP is on a different scale. A credible organisation here would give Chiag Paswan a political presence in the country’s largest state and potentially strengthen his position in future NDA negotiations.
Chirag Paswan asked CEC to address recent SIR controversy.
His recent conduct suggests that maintaining an independent identity is part of that calculation. He has criticised the Bihar government’s handling of law and order while remaining part of the NDA, and questioned the Election Commission over concerns surrounding SIR before welcoming its subsequent clarification.
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The UP experiment, therefore, would not simply be about how many seats LJP(RV) could win. It would be abot whether Chirag Paswan can build an influence outside Bihar to make his party a more consequential NDA partner, while retaining the political independence he summed up in his own words: “I am in the alliance but I am not the BJP.”
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