Convict and Oppn leader: The two lives of RJD president Lalu Prasad
Already lodged in jail and now slapped with a fresh 14 year sentence on Saturday by a special CBI court in Ranchi, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav continues to call the shots from behind bars within his party and in forging alliances, a close confidante revealed on Sunday.
Within 10 days of his party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, registering two electoral victories in the bypolls on March 14, Yadav was handed two criminal convictions in cases related to the decades-old fodder scam. Even though party leaders have called the CBI investigations politically motivated and decided to challenge the convictions, they said Yadav will play a pivotal role in forging a larger anti-BJP alliance.
Party leaders said the stream of visitors meeting Yadav has only increased over the last few weeks, especially after the bypoll results gave the RJD an edge in Bihar. The party had won the Jehanabad assembly and the Araria Lok Sabha seats.
On Saturday, Samajwadi Party vice president Kiranmoy Nanda met Yadav in hospital – the RIIMS in Ranchi -- to discuss the need for opposition unity in the country, a political leader privy to the meeting said. The person added that Nanda briefed Yadav on SP and Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) unity in the UP bypoll that helped in defeating BJP candidates in Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituencies.
Nanda was deputed by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to meet the RJD chief to discuss formation of a grand alliance at the national level ahead of the 2019 parliamentary polls, the RJD leader said.
“All of us must not forget that if there is positive churning amongst political parties in the opposition, it is on account of the continuous appeal and communication for the same from Lalu Prasad Yadav, the national president of RJD,” party’s national spokesperson Manoj K Jha said.
Jha added the party will move higher courts against the convictions. “You can conspire and jail a leader but you don’t have any mechanism to incarcerate his ideas for Bahujan unification,” the RJD leader said.
BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha also called on Lalu describing his meeting with the RJD boss as a courtesy call to enquire about his health but the meeting is not without political significance. Sinha has been vocal against his own party.
That Yadav has the final say in RJD’s decision making despite being in jail can also be gauged from the fact that in recently concluded Rajya Sabha polls, the names of candidates were declared only after his approval with utmost secrecy being maintained about the possible nominee.
Insiders said Yadav’s son and the leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav played a role in choosing Jha as one of the party’s nominees for the upper house, but the final decision was taken by the RJD chief. “Lalu ji is the party president and key decisions are taken only after consulting him and his due guidance. There is nothing wrong in it,” said a close confidante of the RJD chief.
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