RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s apparent bid to launch his son, Tej Pratap on Saturday evening at Mahua under the Hajipur parliamentary seat constituency, according to the media reports, vociferously opposed by his own partymen.
Political scientists may term what had happened at Mahua as a healthy sign for democracy as there is someone to openly oppose RJD chief in public. It is other thing that Jageshwar Rai, who showed the courage, may have to pay the price for challenging the leadership. A day later Lalu denied that any such thing had happened.
True, Pappu Yadav and the BJP––on and off––flay Lalu for perpetrating dynastic rule but they lack moral courage as they are practising the same. Pappu had not only got his wife elected from Congress, but once even put up his mother as a candidate. This was something very unusual even by the present standard.
Similarly, the BJP has quite a few such figures both nationally and at the state level.
Its ally Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan is almost on par with Lalu when it comes to giving ticket to family members. He, his son Chirag Paswan and brother Ram Chandra Paswan are at present three out of six MPs. Another brother Pashupati Kumar Paras is the state party chief, while other relatives too have been benefited by his political position.
Hindustani Awam Morcha, another party about to enter the NDA, has a number of such leaders. Narendra Singh and his two MLA sons are one such example so is Rahul Sharma, son of Jagdish Sharma, the former Jehanabad MP, who once even got elected his wife from Ghosi.
So what Jageshwar Rai reportedly did deserves more appreciation then all these so-called politicians.
The problem with Lalu is that he has increasingly been trusting his own family members, especially after the fodder scam was unearthed. As he grew politically weak and thrust his wife as the chief minister he started trusting his brother-in-laws. But they harmed him more. Now that Sadhu and Subhash are no more with him and he himself can not contest election because of conviction for more than two years he may end up giving ticket to his two sons and eldest daughter Misa Bharati, who lost to Ram Kripal Yadav in the last year’s Lok Sabha election.
Lalu’s is a typical political family. He even got some of his daughters married to political families of UP and Haryana. So he has personal relationship both in Congress and Samajwadi Party.
With Nitish Kumar now the chief minister candidate of the JD(U)-RJD alliance and even wife Rabri Devi nowhere in the scene to emerge as a major political force ensuring ticket for some more members of his family is what a weak Lalu can afford.