Sidelined, ‘PRODIGAL’ Tej floats parallel body

PATNA: Sidelined in the RJD, founded and headed by his father Lalu Prasad, elder son Tej Pratap Yadav has floated a new students' body with the ostensible aim of strengthening the parent organisation.

Yadav launched the Chhatra Janshakti Parishad two days ago and claimed that it was not meant to pose any challenge to the Chhatra RJD, the party's official student wing, but work towards "mobilizing youth at the village level".

The maverick MLA came out with the announcement, claiming, as always, that he had "the blessings of Lalu Prasad", at a time when he was left licking his wounds after losing the battle in a tug of war with state RJD chief Jagadanand Singh.

Singh, known to be close to Yadav's younger and more powerful sibling Tejashwi Yadav, had earned the wrath of the mercurial elder brother recently when he sacked Akash Yadav as the state president of Chhatra RJD.

Though there was no official word on the reasons behind the removal of Akash Yadav, one of the few close friends of Tej Pratap, it was widely believed the blame fell on him when posters came up in the city recently in which images of Tejashwi now the party’s de-facto leader were conspicuous by absence. Sensing it could further diminish his clout, Tej Pratap had reacted furiously, likening Jagadanand Singh

to ‘Hitler’, who refused to visit the party office for days in protest, until he was, understandably, mollified by Tejashwi.

Tej Pratap is fighting for his survival and we sympathize with him. His father has treated the party as a personal fiefdom and failed to do justice to his own son —NIKHIL ANAND, State BJP spokesman