PATNA: Mystery about the politics within RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family has just got deeper. As the leader recuperates at a Mumbai hospital after a surgery, speculation is rife that his outspoken elder son and former minister Tej Pratap Yadav may quit politics for being ignored by his parents.
Tej Pratap, 29, sent ripples in Bihar politics by saying in a Facebook post that he plans to quit politics because his parents have been indifferent to his complaints about two RJD leaders trying to tarnish his image. As the post got more than 500 likes and 20 shares, Tej Pratap deleted it a little over an hour later and said his FB account was hacked.
“My Facebook account has been hacked and utter rubbish has been posted as my words. It is the handiwork of people from BJP, RSS and JD(U), who always keep an eye on my activities and try to create fissures in our family,” said Tej Pratap on Tuesday. He also said he would lodge an FIR against the hackers.
Tej Pratap, a first-time MLA who got married in May, had written the longish post in Hindi on Monday evening, a day after his visit to his Assembly constituency of Mahua. He wrote that his supporters complained to him about two people close to his parents spreading canards about him and tarnishing his image.
“All the party workers complained against Om Prakash Yadav alias Bhutto and MLC Subodh Rai… The party workers told me these two men are spreading fake information about me, saying that I am mentally disturbed and very suspicious. They also say I am a slave of my wife and that I am an MLA only in name,” said the FB post.
Both Om Prakash Yadav and Subodh Rai have been close to the RJD chief and his wife, former CM Rabri Devi, for several years. While Om Prakash used to be Tej Pratap’s PA earlier, he is currently Rabri Devi’s PA. He hails from Rabri Devi’s native place in Gopalganj district.
“I told my supporters that I am aware of this situation and I have also complained about these two men to my parents several times. But my mother does not listen to me and I have to endure rebukes. This is why I am under tremendous pressure,” the FB post said. “I possess massive courage and capability by which I can crush these insects in a twinkling of an eye, but my steps get frozen because of my own people,” it added.
RJD sources said Tej Pratap has been unhappy about all the public and media attention being on his younger brother, Tejashwi Yadav, a former Bihar deputy chief minister and currently leader of Opposition in the Assembly. Considered Lalu-Rabri’s political heir, Tejashwi is going to be the RJD-led grand alliance’s CM candidate for Bihar’s 2020 Assembly polls.
“Tejashwi’s political ambitions would be torn asunder by none other than his own brother, who is like Vibhishan to Ravana,” said JD(U) spokesperson Sanjay Singh. “Since he has been denied his natural rights as an elder son, his outbursts are normal expressions of his feelings,” said BJP leader and health minister Mangal Pandey.
But Tej Pratap insisted that his relations with Tejashwi are “very cordial and strong like cement”.