Holding The Fort

The Young Tejashwi Yadav Has Big Shoes To Fill As He Spearheads The Rjd-led Mahagathbandhan’s Lok Sabha Campaign In Bihar In The Absence Of Father Lalu Prasad. Can He Deliver?

- Amitabh Srivastava

Hunger is writ large on Tejashwi Yadav’s face as he swiftly uses his fork to dig into a bowl of chow mein and manchurian gravy. “Do paranthe kha ke nikle the, bhai (Had just two paranthas before stepping out [for the day]),” he says. It’s 7 pm and Tejashwi has just returned to 10, Circular Road, mother Rabri Devi’s official residence in Patna, after

addressing four public meetings in Khagaria, Madhepura and Madhubani districts. With father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad in judicial custody, following conviction in the fodder scam, and Rabri Devi stepping back, Tejashwi is the man in the RJD hot seat.

The Lalu Factor

The younger of Lalu’s two sons, 29-year-old Tejashwi knows he has big shoes to fill. The 2019 Lok Sabha contest is the RJD’s first major electoral campaign without Lalu at the helm. That RJD will be missing his political acumen, charisma and oratory skills is an understatement. Though Lalu’s parliamentary career ended in September 2013 when his first conviction in the fodder scam cost him his Lok Sabha membership, besides rendering him ineligible to contest elections, he has remained a political force with an extraordinary connect with Bihar’s masses. Out on bail, Lalu had campaigned for the RJD in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and the 2015 assembly election. “Lalu Prasad is a crafty campaigner who can read the voters’ pulse and swing the fence-sitters in his favour,” says an RJD leader. “He has always been a great consolidator.”