Union Minister and LJP supremo Ram Vilas Paswan passes away

पापा....अब आप इस दुनिया में नहीं हैं लेकिन मुझे पता है आप जहां भी हैं हमेशा मेरे साथ हैं।
Miss you Papa... pic.twitter.com/Qc9wF6Jl6Z

— युवा बिहारी चिराग पासवान (@iChiragPaswan) October 8, 2020

The Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution had undergone a heart surgery, his son Chirag Paswan said on October 4.

Paswan, who has been in active politics for more than five decades and was one of the country's most noted Dalit leaders, had been hospitalised for the last few weeks.

Known as the 'weathervane' of Indian politics, Paswan was born in 1946 in a small village near Khagaria in eastern Bihar to a Dalit family. He completed a master’s and a law degree from Patna University and passed the civil service examination in Bihar.

While Paswan was qualified to be a superintendent of police, he had rejected that offer to join politics.

Paswan's first political breakthrough happened in 1969, when he was elected to the Bihar state assembly.

Paswan had held the charge of many cabinet portfolios, including railways, coal and mines, communication, in Union governments of all kinds of ideological and political moorings led by Deve Gowda, IK Gujral, AB Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, and Narendra Modi.