How Will Lalu Sail His Boat Ashore?

Lalu Prasad is tied up in his own knotty family knots. His love for pelf and parivar has done him both political and social damages. Yet, the lust for them has not ebbed 

He has been out of power in Bihar for about twenty years, except for brief periods in two terms on the crutches of chief minister Nitish Kumar who used his numbers in the Assembly to do hard bargaining with the BJP, despite numerically being a small fry.

Nitish's family life also has not much to sing about but it came out in public as having a smooth sailing. His son Nishant Kumar is a quite contrast to Lalu’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav.

In his heyday, Lalu was a mercurial leader and presented a persona of a maverick. He was able to sell his image as a messiah for the poor Backwards that saw phenomenon rise in their political and social standings in Bihar.

Lalu’s pet phrase: “He gave not Swarg (paradise) but Swar (voices) to the downtrodden” sums the achievements of his regime. Though it is also a fact that he was convicted on the charges of embezzling the funds for fodder meant for poor peasants’ animals.

The latest embarrassment to hit the family is the social media post by Tej Pratap that he has been in a relationship with a woman for 12 years.  Though, the post was later deleted and Tej Pratap said that his Facebook account was hacked but he did not lodge any FIR against the hacking.

Now many questions stare at Lalu. Was the family aware of Tej Pratap -Anushka Yadav relations when Tej Pratap married former Bihar chief minister Daroga Rai’s granddaughter Aishwarya Rai in 2018? Was not Tej Pratap, a former minister in the Bank cabinet, in the know of the legal and moral implications of tying the knots with Aishwarya while being in relationship with another woman.

Lalu has expelled Tej Pratap from the party and severed the family relationship with him. He made a grandiose moral lecture on X while expelling his son. “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.”

But Aishwarya has termed it a pre-election (Bihar Assembly will go to poll later this year) stunt to pre-empt political damages. She also says that the court has held the family guilty of domestic violence but their political influence ensured that the guilty are not harmed.

Nitish would be calculating political benefits which the Tej Pratap spectacles would likely accrue to the NDA alliance in the Assembly election. Modi would also not let this lollipop let go. Rather, his rhetoric on the issue would likely be more lethal and damaging to the Lalu dynasty.

There would also be churning in the INDIA alliance over it. The India alliance lost the 2020 Assembly election after the Tej Pratap-Aishwariya episode in 2018. It cannot be said definitely whether it had a bearing on the election results but it did dent the image of the family.

The family has over the years carved out an image of a political dynasty hankering after power. It is the family, not any central body, that controls the party. Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi, his two sons, Tej Pratap and Tejaswi Yadav, are the next generation party leaders with Tejaswi in command and his two daughters bring up the rear. Both daughters, Misa Bharti and Rohini Acharya, fought the last Lok Sabha elections. Misa won, while Rohini failed to reach Parliament.

Morality does not have any space in politics but it at times does play the role of a game changer in elections. Corruption has dogged governance for long, irrespective of the type of the system in place.

 It has hobbled modern democracy across the world. Parties have been ousted from power on this issue. Modi came to power on this issue promising ‘acche din.’ Yet, its roots are going deep and widespread.

Lalu is considered the strongest bulwark against communalism in Bihar, yet in the last Lok Sabha elections Nitish trumped him by a big margin of seats. Caste equations over the years have also turned against him, with numerically stronger Extremely Backward Castes (EBC) rallying behind Nitish.

As regards Forward Castes, Bhumihars, Brahmins and Kayasthas are solidly behind Nitish or BJP. The BJP’s agenda of Hindutva is so strong that it, when combined with the caste configurations, gives an impression that odds are heavily stacked against the Mahagathbandhan led by Tejaswi.

Left parties are very much on the scene but they have been relegated to the margin. They cannot think of going solo. To ally with the RJD, which claims support of majority of Yadavs and Muslims, is their compulsion to get a respectable presence in the Assembly. The Tej Pratap embarrassment is going to be an issue in the election. Aishwarya may also plunge into the field to take revenge against the family.

How Lalu and his heir Tejaswi negotiate the choppy waters and row the boat ashore will be interesting to watch as the election date nears.