Patna: RJD president Lalu Prasad on Sunday expelled his elder son Tej Pratap Yadav from the party, besides declaring “he shall have nothing to do with the family”.
Yadav had on Saturday evening announced on social media that he was “in a relationship for 12 years” with a woman, despite being married and his divorce petition still pending before a family court here. He, however, deleted the post a few hours later, claiming on X that his Facebook page was “hacked”.
Prasad, who announced his drastic move on social media, made no mention of the previous day’s happenings, but criticised his elder son’s actions, public conduct and “irresponsible behaviour”, saying “disregard for moral values in personal life weakens our collective struggle to achieve social justice”.
He admonished Yadav for behaving in a manner “not in consonance with the values of my family” and declared that “he shall have no role, henceforth, in the party and the family. He is expelled from the party for six years”.
The development came with barely a few months left for the Bihar assembly polls, which the RJD will fight under the leadership of Prasad’s younger son, Tejashwi Yadav.
Born to Prasad and Rabri Devi, both former chief ministers of Bihar, the brother duo is among four of nine siblings active in politics.
The couple’s eldest child, Misa Bharti, is the party MP from Pataliputra, while another daughter, Rohini Acharya, made an unsuccessful maiden attempt from Saran in the Lok Sabha polls last year.
The remaining five siblings, all sisters, have so far not entered politics, though one of them, Hema Yadav, has been named in the land for jobs scam pertaining to Prasad’s tenure as railway minister in the UPA government.
Both Hema and Tej Pratap were granted bail in the case, which the ED is probing, by a Delhi court in March this year.
When Tejashwi Yadav, the former deputy chief minister, was asked about what was the proverbial last straw, he gave a guarded response but minced no words in stating “things have not been to my liking”.
“My elder brother is an adult. He is free to make any choice in his personal life. But there are certain things we cannot tolerate. And this is what our national president has asserted in his post,” said Yadav, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly.
Tej Pratap Yadav had made his political debut in the assembly polls of 2015, and is a second-term MLA with two brief stints in the state cabinet.
In his first term, he represented the Mahua assembly segment, but was made to shift base to Hasanpur five years later because of a general perception that he was not very popular with voters. Unlike his younger brother, who has since emerged as the most popular politician of his generation in the state, Tej Pratap Yadav has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
A few months ago, he made headlines for threatening a policeman in his security detail with suspension upon refusal to dance as per his command and speeding on a two-wheeler without wearing a helmet.
Earlier, he had been in the news for an ugly marital dispute, besides antics like supporting rebels in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, floating a parallel outfit “Lalu Rabri Morcha” and occupying the chair reserved for the national president while at the RJD office.
Reacting to the turmoil in RJD, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said, “Lalu Prasad has used a jack to salvage his reputation after his elder son tried to cover up his misdemeanour with the claim that his Facebook page had been hacked.”
“But Lalu Prasad must remember that he will still be charged with dynasty rule and keeping mum when his daughter-in-law, a grandchild of a former CM, was humiliated,” he said.
The allusion was to Aishwarya, the granddaughter of Daroga Prasad Rai, who tied the knot with Tej Pratap Yadav in 2018 but left his house a few months later, alleging that she was driven out by her husband and in-laws.
BJP leader Nikhil Anand claimed, “Lalu Prasad has tried to save the reputation of his family and his party by acting against his elder son. But they can still not be absolved of the ill-treatment meted out to Aishwarya.”
