Chirag Paswan on his way to file his nomination in Jamui on Wednesday
Chirag Paswan's debut in 2011 as a Bollywood actor went unnoticed. He will hope that his electoral debut is very different. Chirag, the son of LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan, is contesting the general elections from Jamui in western Bihar.
In 2009, the Lok Janashakti Party or LJP had won not one seat. Can Chirag reverse that in Jamui?
"My X-factor is that I have a lot of appeal among the youth. They will come out and vote for me," the 30-year-old told NDTV confidently today.
The Jamui contest is being called a battle of outsiders. The Janata Dal United candidate Uday Narayan Chaudhary is a veteran politician and the Speaker of the Bihar Assembly, but has never contested from Jamui. Neither has Sudhanshu Shekhar of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, a two-time MLA.
In this election, however, all eyes will be on Chirag. On Wednesday, he filed his nomination, his proud father and party chief by his side; Ram Vilas Paswan, at 68 not among the oldest of politicians, has already declared that the time is here for GenNext to take over.
Chirag has increasingly been given an important political space within his party and was very visible during the negotiations that resulted in the LJP joining hands with the BJP in Bihar.
Former ally and now political opponent, Lalu Yadav, is doing his best to make it a tough debut for Paswan junior. As Chirag filed his nomination, Lalu addressed a public meeting just a few hundred metres away.
Lalu's challenge: "Not one Paswan vote will go to the LJP , you will see." The Paswans are a dominant backward caste that constitute about 5 per cent of Bihar's electorate.
The RJD chief has nothing to lose in Jamui. The constituency has not voted his party's way in a long time. But Lalu's candidate could end up taking away some backward caste and Muslim votes from both Chirag Paswan and the JD(U) candidate. The seat is held by Nitish Kumar's JD(U), but the party has changed its candidate.