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With just days to go for the formation of Nitish Kumar’s Council of Ministers in Bihar, all eyes are on RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. The big question – which of his sons and daughters will rise to the A-list.
Sources within the RJD have told The Quint that both Tej Pratap Yadav and his younger brother Tejaswi Yadav are eyeing a seat in the Bihar council of ministers. They say Lalu Prasad Yadav cannot afford to alienate one at the cost of the other, and that both are likely to be appointed ministers or ministers of state with independent charge.
But sources close to the family say Misa Bharti, the eldest daughter and the most seasoned of all her siblings, is being seen as Lalu Prasad Yadav’s eventual political heir.
For now, however, it is unlikely that Lalu will bypass his sons and give Misa a government position, given that she didn’t fight the election. From the looks of it, she will have to wait in the stands for a larger role in the party.
In the just-concluded Bihar elections, both Lalu’s sons, Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav made stunning debuts. Tejaswi wrested back the family bastion of Raghopur by a margin of 22,733 votes while elder brother Tej Pratap won from Mahua by a margin of 28,155 votes.
Advisors close to the family tell The Quint that both first-time MLAs are political greenhorns compared to Lalu’s eldest daughter. After having lost in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, Misa was not given a ticket this time. But in 2015, she has been the backbone and master strategist behind the political family’s fight for survival. While Tej Pratap is believed to be close to mother Rabri, and Tejaswi close to father Lalu, it is Misa who has stood behind the family during their most trying times.
In a candid conversation with The Quint, Misa said she is willing to take on the party mantle, if she is asked.
A doctor by profession, Misa is an avid reader, a movie buff and a great cook. She maintains a lush kitchen garden at the 10 Circular Road residence in Patna. A mother of two daughters, Durga, 12 and Gauri, 7, Misa married Shailesh Kumar, a Delhi-based businessman in 1999 without ever meeting him. She said she implicity trusts her father’s decision.
This election, Misa led over 40 campaigns. While she admits that the focus was on Tejaswi and Tej Pratap’s constituencies, she also canvassed at Congress and JD(U) strongholds. A senior political advisor to the Yadav family says that given the turnout of women voters and Misa’s mass appeal as a woman leader, she must be given a bigger role in the party and the government.
But after the stellar mandate, sources within the RJD have told The Quint that tension is building up between the brothers, and if either is denied a position or if they are bypassed for Misa, it will lead to bad blood. For her part, Misa says there is no room for sibling rivalry.
A close friend of the family says that Lalu is intrinsically patriarchal and that is partly why he promoted his sons heavily in the 2015 election. While political observers concur with that view, they also say that Lalu is an astute politician and if he were to eye a larger role for himself in national politics, he is likely to pass on the mantle to Misa.
Lalu, this source says, will particularly not want to repeat the mistakes he made with his brothers-in-law Sadhu Yadav and Subhah Yadav, who became laws unto themselves. It is believed he will promote Misa when the time is right.
Misa Bharti is also highly regarded by the RJD’s allies. Voices within the JD(U), for instance, give Misa the thumbs-up.
Sources within the JD(U) also say that if Lalu Prasad Yadav is to pursue his national ambitions, Misa should be the de facto political heir. Speaking of the alliance, Misa herself strikes all the right notes.
It is not just Misa, her husband Shailesh Kumar too played a huge role in the RJD campaign. Shailesh, an engineer, hired ten youths from engineering and management backgrounds to manage social media and technology for the party’s campaign. Shailesh set up an IT and Tech room at Lalu’s Patna residence during the course of the election.
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Published: 17 Nov 2015,04:27 PM IST