No one can quite recall how Ram Vilas Paswan came to be known as ‘mausam vaigyanik’ or the “weathervane of Indian politics.” In the Introduction to her book, Ram Vilas Paswan: The Weathervane of Indian Politics, Sobhana K. Nair writes that political commentator Abhay Kumar credits Lalu Prasad Yadav for coming up with this descriptor for his political adversary from Bihar, who would become the face of Dalits. Paswan used his ideological agnosticism to cross many political lines, as this edited excerpt shows:
In the 1998 general elections, the Janata Dal was reduced to a shadow of its 1989 self. It contested 191 seats and managed to win only six. Its vote share now stood at a little over 3%, six times less than what it got in 1989. In Bihar, it was in a pitiable situation — of the 35 seats, it lost the deposit in 27 seats. Ram Vilas Paswan was the only candidate to win. Sharad Yadav lost to Lalu Prasad Yadav from Madhepura by a margin of 51,000 votes. Bihar was neatly divided into the RJD vs NDA camp, with no slot left for the Janata Dal.
