When the stars let down Lalu and family, with no respite in sight
PATNA: Despite efforts by RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family to seek divine intervention by visiting temples and performing puja to tide over the trouble from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and standoff in the Grand Alliance (GA), the stars seem to have failed them. Chief minister Nitish Kumar and the NDA pulled the rug from under its feet on Wednesday.
Since July 7, when CBI raided RJD chief ‘s 10 Circular Road residence in connection with the hotel for land scam, Prasad, along with his two sons, deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and health minister Tej Pratap Yadav, have been busy performing pujas at their home and calling in priests to perform hawan.
Reports have it as how Tejashwi and Tej Pratap had visited the famous Hariharnath temple in Hajipur and per- formed Rudhraabhishek to ward off evil forces. That was not all.
Tej Pratap, who is a devout, also got his bungalow restructured by closing the rear gate of the house on the advice of astrologers. Sources said RJD chief had himself carried out numerous hawans at his residence so that the crisis within the Grand Alliance could be neutralised. Alliance leader of the Congress, Ashok Kumar Choudhary, visited various religious shrines to pray for the longevity of the alliance, which revived its fortunes in a big way in the 2014 assembly elections.
Past few months proved tough as leaders accused of corruption were targeted. Even as Lalu Prasad’s fodder scam cases were revived in a CBI court in Ranchi, BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi carried out attacks, exposing the RJD’s greed and attempts at amassing wealth and land, which went home with deadly impact.
The exposes targeted his daughters and both sons. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned his eldest daughter Misa Bharati, a Rajya Sabha member, and her husband to clarify on how they amassed benami property. The benami scandal, acquisition of petrol pumps, offering ministerial posts in lieu of land and landfor- hotels scam, almost sealed the fate of the family.