A kingmaker who turned out to be loser

Ramvilas Paswan: He was thought to be a kingmaker, a pivot of the fourth front, created to increase the bargaining power of three satraps — Ramvilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad from Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav from UP. But Paswan lost his Hajipur constituency to Ramsundar Das, the Janata Dal (U) nominee, as the JD(U)-BJP combine swept Bihar.

Paswan was the youngest MP in the Lok Sabha in 1977, when he was first elected. He held the aces for a brief while when Bihar Assembly elections were held in 2005. That time, he would have been the king-maker had he opted to support the JD(U) and not the Rashtriya Janata Dal. He was hoping for that role in the 15th Lok Sabha. It didn’t happen.