Yadavs & body politic

Manoj Chaurasia / The Statesman

Patna: Bihar’s former famed Yadav couple is down but not out yet. Days after the family threw hints of moving quietly out of politics when RJD chief Lalu Prasad inaugurated the motorcycle shop of his eldest son, it now appears that the family is now planning to bring children from the family into politics and return to the political arena with a bang. Mr Prasad has nine children, including seven daughters and two sons.

“I will bring my children into politics…all my children into politics”, said Rabri Devi former Bihar chief minister and wife of Mr Prasad, while talking to newsmen in Patna today.  

“If a judge’s son can become a judge, doctor’s son a doctor and engineer’s son an engineer, why can’t a leader’s son become a leader? Why such hullabaloo over politicians’ children plunging into politics?” Mrs Devi who was looking quite relaxed after the marriage of most of her daughters told the media.

“Hum to utarenge….sab ko utarenge rajniti mein”. The volte-face comes barely four days after the political experts felt Mr Prasad’s family had lost hope of returning to power and hence instead of focusing on politics, it is now concentrating on branching out business.

What, as such, formed the basis for starting such kind of debates in the political circles was the decision of the RJD chief to open the “LaRa” motorcycle shop of his son Tej Pratap, the first two letters of the agency denoting the first two letters of the names of Lalu and Rabri, in southern Bihar’s Aurangabad district which is far away from his home district of Gopalganj and even from the state capital. The agency for Hero motorcycles was inaugurated by Mr Prasad himself on Saturday amid much fanfare.

The logic the experts had given behind why Mr Prasad wants to settle in business, rather than in politics in which he had not been taking any interest since the time his party suffered serious drubbings at the hands of his political rivals in the last Assembly election, was that his other son Mr Tejasvi Yadav did not taste any success with politics.

Mr Prasad had brought his cricketer son into politics just ahead of the 2010 Assembly election to counter his rivals but he failed badly as the RJD’s seats further slipped to 22 from its earlier tally of 54 ~ the worst in 15 years. Moreover, Mrs Devi too has been in the family business of dairy with more than 100 cows and calves supporting her business. 

But, as it turns out now, Mr Prasad now looks trying to shift his full focus to politics again by bringing his children there, which is set to intensify the rather dull state political seen again. Most of the Opposition parties in the state are already “in action” although the general elections are still two years away.

While the Congress has launched “pol khol” yatra across the state to expose the hypocrisy of the chief minister, the LJP has launched signature campaign, seeking dismissal of the Nitish Kumar government.