By this time next month, the Lok Janshakti Party and the state of Bihar would be hours ahead of knowing how Chirag Paswan has passed the crucial test of filling the vacuum that was left by his father, a renowned Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan. Though Chirag was the political heir of the senior Paswan, the former has been pushed as a full-time politician when his father was ailing and battling for survival. 

When the senior Paswan lost his battle for survival as he had breathed his last on Thursday at the age of 74, Chirag Paswan has been levied with the challenges to withstand and win the battle of legislative elections amid bracing up the loss of his father, who has been acknowledged as one of the towering and visionary leaders in the nation, who, with the political career that spanned for over five decades, had been the voice of oppressed and Dalits. 

Unlike the prominency shaped by senior Paswan, Chirag Paswan is yet to cement a strong equilibrium of retaining the strongholds left by his father and to emerge as a new leader by earning the same amount of confidence, importance, and voice that the senior Paswan had made some of the assets. The real test and fight to demonstrate his father's politics are not years, but days away for Chirag Paswan. With taking over the party, he must pass the test to have the surety that people will accept him in place of his father. 

Bihar legislative elections are one of the polls that would draw nationwide attention and with the loss of Ram Vilas Paswan, who was one of the prominent leaders in Bihar, it had attracted more attention as his demise would make an ardent impact in the polls given its voter base of Dalits. Paswan had died exactly twenty days before the Bihar polls and it has been expected that it would change the political dynamics of the state and it may unfold a strong impact on the outcome of the elections. 

Bihar would go for the legislative polls on October 28 in a three-phased manner. For BJP, it would be one of the crucial elections since Narendra Modi formed the government at the Center for the second consecutive term. When the senior Paswan was active, he had held an alliance with BJP and the state ruling Janata Dal-United, headed by Nitish Kumar. However, when Chirag Paswan was made the president of the party, he announced that the LJP will be contesting the Bihar Elections on its own.

LJP is part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which also consists of BJP and Bihar ruling JD(U). However, in the albeit of knowing that the elections would be an acid test for him, Chirag Paswan aired the statement that invited perplexion. In what his party leaders say that it would enhance the base of the party in Bihar, Chirag said his party would contest the elections on its own and the party has also asserted that it will field candidates against the Bihar ruling JD(U) but not against the BJP. 

According to reports, his statement of supporting BJP and opposing JD(U) had highlighted that his party has broken away from the alliance in half and his party has claimed that it will offer its post-poll support to the Central ruling BJP and will follow the path of progress shown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For Chirag Paswan, while his father's face goes ahead of him in the campaign trials, the sympathy factor would largely stand with him to sail his new fleet towards the victory. 

The death of the senior Paswan would help Chirag Paswan in boosting the party and in his bid to emerge as the perfect political replacement from being a political heir, he must work out to reserve the Dalit vote bank to his party as drawing long-term support from Dalits is one of the important factors that would help him fill up the space left by his father. In Bihar, Dalits comprise over 17 percent of the total voters and they are one of the game-changers and their votes would be the outcome of how the death of Paswan and the rise of his son had impacted them. 

However, though the junior Paswan won't have a second thought on whether the party would support him, the real challenge for him lies in how he represents as the voice and hope like his father and with neither having political challenge nor his father around, Chirag may face problems in rolling out the strategies and seeking votes by claiming that he strongly supports the BJP. Chirag would be braced up to answer the people on the allegations leveled by the opposition against the BJP. 

At the current state, Chirag's assertion of cutting 50% of his support from the NDA, with support for BJP, has pushed the Central ruling party to find a convincing answer over his assertion. According to reports, the BJP in Bihar has been finding it difficult to explain why Chirag's LJP has decided to contest on its own despite being part of the NDA and it has also drawn speculations, being a part of NDA, whether Chirag Paswan endorses JDU's Nitish Kumar as the NDA's Chief Ministerial candidate. 

Having said that Dalit voter bank would be crucial for Chirag, it arises two possibilities - one Dalits rallying behind Chirag by seeing senior Paswan in him and the other, breaking the ties after the demise of senior Paswan. Whatever they do, Chirag would find a challenge in balancing their overwhelming support or otherwise. Being known as a less grounded among people, Chirag's projection and exposure, with his father's face and support, will write how Chirag has re-shaped himself as a politician and replacement of his father in one of the key Indian states. 

In the campaign trail, Chirag has a lot to speak about his father's achievements, which would possibly convert as the vote, but the more he speaks about his father, the more he has to get prepared to echo his father's reformations and politics to have his political grounds both at the state and at the nation. Ram Vilas Paswan was known for histories and he rose to prominence in 1974 when he opposed the Emergency. 

In 1977, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time on a Janata Party ticket from the Hajipur constituency and created a record by winning by over 4 lakh votes, through which he etched his name as the world-record holder in winning with such a huge margin. But for him, it was not the last as in 1989, he won from the same parliamentary constituency by over 5 lakh votes. Ram Vilas Paswan was elected to the Parliament eight times and he had served in the cabinet of five Prime Ministers including incumbent Narendra Modi. 

With such a political legacy, Ram Vilas Paswan had passed the baton to his son Chirag Paswan, who has now take his father's legacy forward by becoming one of the influential leaders in the upcoming polls. The election in Bihar would be held in three phases for a total of 243 seats. 71 seats would go for polls on October 28 as the first phase, 94 seats on November 3 as the second phase, and 78 seats on November 7 as the third phase and the results would be announced on November 10 during which the state would reveal the real impact of the loss of Ram Vilas Paswan.