RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s younger son Tejaswi Yadav is likely to play a major role in the RJD to retain his family’s tight hold on the party as his father and former Bihar strongman faces political uncertainties due to the nearing verdict in a fodder scam case against him.
The 21-year-old former IPL cricketer, who was projected by the regional party as its youth icon in April and led a statewide “Yuva Jan Samarthan Yatra” trying to persuade Bihar’s youth to join the RJD, has got a clear precedence over his elder brother Tej Pratap, 25, a budding businessman and college student. By most indications, the RJD chief has decided to project Tejaswi, who has acquired a bigger political and public profile than Tej Pratap, as his political heir.
The invitation Yadav gave Tejaswi to rise to the stage at an important meeting of the party’s top leaders in Patna and address them for as long as he wanted on Wednesday made it clear to most RJD leaders what the former Bihar chief minister and railway minister has in mind in the event of his future absence. While the senior leaders had got only five minutes each to speak, Tejaswi spoke for 20 minutes as everyone listened attentively.
“It is very likely that the boss (Yadav) would let Tejaswi manage the party’s internal and financial matters as his main, inviolable representative if an adverse order from the court stops him from being as active politically as he is today,” said a top aide of the RJD chief.
RJD leaders seem to have taken kindly to Tejaswi’s rise to prominence within the party mainly because of his highly courteous attitude to all his superiors. In his address, he asked them not to refer to him as “yuvaraj” (young prince), saying he was in a party that represented the poor and backward sections. “Laluji has struggled all his life for the cause of the poor and minorities. Such a messiah’s son will keep working for the poor and can never be a yuvraj,” said Tejaswi.