Patna: Lalu Prasads elder son Tej Pratap Yadav on Thursday asserted out of turn that his eldest sister Misa Bharti will contest the coming Lok Sabha election from Pataliputra again.
Tej Pratap, who was speaking on the sidelines of his daily 'Janata Durbar' at the RJD state headquarters here, also said that he would start campaigning in Pataliputra for his elder sister from Thursday itself even though the party is yet to come out with any official word on the candidature for the seat.
Responding to queries about a recent statement by Maner MLA and chief RJD spokesman Bhai Virendra wherein he had expressed his desire to contest from the seat, he said The people of Pataliputra want Misa didi. Voters cast their votes in the name of Lalu Prasad. Neither Bhai Virendra nor I can do anything about it," Yadav told reporters.
"Bhai Virendra had not got a ministerial berth and may be that is why he suffers from anxieties," he told newsmen. Carved out in the 2008 delimitation, the Pataliputra seat is seen as a prestige issue for the 'first family' in RJD as both Prasad and his daughter have unsuccessfully contested from there.
The RJD president had lost to his former associate Ranjan Yadav in 2009, when the latter was contesting on a JD(U) ticket. Misa fought in 2014 and lost to Ram Kripal Yadav, another former close aide of her father who had gravitated to the BJP.
The comments of the mercurial elder son of Prasad and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi come in the backdrop of reports of discomfiture within the family over growing clout of the younger son Tejashwi Yadav, with whom Bhai Virendra is believed to be close to.
Tejashwi has emerged as the partys de facto leader in the absence of the RJD supremo who is serving sentences in a number of fodder cases. He had made his electoral debut along with his elder brother Tej Pratap in the 2015 assembly polls and was
straightaway appointed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as his deputy. Tej Pratap was given a cabinet berth.
After RJD lost power on account Kumars exit from the Grand Alliance, Tejashwi was appointed as the leader of opposition in the state assembly and by a unanimous resolution adopted at RJDs national council named its chief ministerial candidate for the next assembly polls.
Although Tej Pratap and Misa, who is currently a Rajya Sabha member, have repeatedly denied reports of any rift in the family, speculations have been rife about the elder siblings feeling of having been slighted under the shadow of the younger one.
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