Pashupati Kumar Paras takes charge of food processing ministry

Pashupati Kumar Paras, brother of late Union minister and LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan, on Thursday took charge of the food processing ministry.

On Wednesday, Paras, a Lok Sabha member from Hajipur constituency in Bihar, was inducted into the Narendra Modi-led government as a Cabinet minister and was allocated the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

The portfolio was earlier with Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Prahalad Singh Patel also took charge as the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries.

The ministry has assumed more significance in recent years as the government is focusing on increasing the level of processing fruits and vegetables to reduce wastage.

The central government is also developing several mega food parks across the country with an aim to create jobs and expand the market for processed food.

Paras, a politician with more than four decades of experience, has spent the larger part of his career under the shadow of his late brother Ram Vilas Paswan.

However, having staged a successful revolt against Paswan's son Chirag Paswan, Paras now seems poised to come into his own.

Paras, who previously headed Lok Janshakti Party's Bihar unit and is currently the national president of its breakaway faction, began his innings in 1978 as a Janata Party MLA from Alauli in his native Khagaria district. The seat was formerly represented by his late brother.

He represented the assembly segment several times on tickets of the Janata Dal and later of the party floated by Ram Vilas Paswan.

Paras became a member of the Nitish Kumar Cabinet in the state in 2017 when the chief minister realigned with the NDA.

The 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw him making his Parliamentary debut from Hajipur, a constituency the late Ram Vilas Paswan had nurtured over decades.