A seasonal storm for the RJD

The Hindu

26-05-2025

On May 25, 2025, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) patriarch Lalu Prasad expelled his eldest son, Tej Pratap Yadav, from the party for six years and also cut ties with him. Mr. Prasad's announcement on X was prompted by a now-deleted Facebook post by Mr. Tej Pratap in which he revealed that he had been 'in a relationship for 12 years' with a woman. He later claimed that his Facebook account had been hacked, but did not file a police complaint. In 2018, Mr. Tej Pratap married Aishwarya Rai, the granddaughter of former Chief Minister of Bihar, Daroga Prasad Rai. Within five months of their wedding, Ms. Rai filed for divorce.
Mr. Prasad wrote on X, 'Ignoring moral values in personal life weakens the collective struggle for social cause. The activities, public conduct and irresponsible behaviour of the eldest son are not in accordance with our family values and traditions. Therefore, due to the above circumstances, I remove him from the party and family. From now on, he will not have any role of any kind in the party and family. He is expelled from the party for six years.'
Of Mr. Prasad's nine children, four are in active politics. Mr. Prasad's eldest daughter, Misa Bharati, is a Lok Sabha MP. His youngest son, Tejashwi Yadav, is the Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly. Mr. Tej Pratap is an MLA from Hasanpur constituency and Rohini Acharya unsuccessfully contested the 2024 general elections.
For the family, politics is often personal. Mr. Prasad was in jail when Ms. Bharati was born in 1975. At the time, he was booked under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), 1971 — a notorious legislation aimed at curbing political dissent; it was later repealed. According to Mr. Prasad, it was the socialist and freedom fighter, Jai Prakash Narayan, who suggested that Mr. Prasad name his daughter- Misa, after the law under which he was incarcerated.
In 2013, when Mr. Prasad was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail in the fodder scam case, his wife Rabri Devi took over the mantle from him. Then Mr. Tejashwi Yadav stepped into his father's shoes much to the chagrin of not only Mr. Tej Pratap, but also senior party members.
This is not the first time that Mr. Tej Pratap is getting into a scrape. In 2019, just before the general elections, he resigned from all positions in the RJD in protest against the party's decision to field his former father-in-law, Chandrika Rai, from the Saran constituency. He went on to form a new party named after his parents — Lalu-Rabri Morcha. The family managed to contain the damage. In March 2024, videos of him slapping and pushing party workers off stage went viral. With occasional apologies and often convoluted explanations, these incidents were brushed under the carpet. The family made both private and public efforts to ensure that underlying tensions did not come to the fore. In his two stints as Deputy Chief Minister, Mr. Tejashwi Yadav touched his elder's brother's feet at public meetings, a gesture meant to demonstrate that the family hierarchy is intact even though he may have outstripped him in politics.
Dynastic politics may appear to be the antithesis of democracy, yet it is an inescapable reality for most world democracies. Even in political parties that brand themselves 'anti-dynasty', the top leaders are often dynasts. Similarly, struggle for control of the party by family members is not new. Many unseemly battles have played out under the public glare in India — from the struggle to seize control of the Telugu Desam Party in 1995 to the contest between Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav in 2017. Recently too, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati expelled her nephew Akash Anand only to bring him back into the fold.
This move is significant as Bihar is going to the polls. In the last two Assembly elections, the RJD emerged as the single largest party in Bihar. In 2015, it won 81 seats and in 2020, it secured 75 seats. Both times, it came within striking distance of victory, but ran out of steam in the last mile. Today, once again, the RJD-led 'Mahagathbandhan' is facing a formidable Bharatiya Janata Party led-National Democratic Alliance. The caste arithmetic is stacked against the Mahagathbandhan. Given this context, this controversy was entirely avoidable for the RJD. Mr. Tej Pratap's expulsion has only provided fresh ammunition to the BJP. It remains to be seen how swiftly the RJD can put a lid on this controversy.