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Journalism of Courage
While Sharad Yadav would make his political debut from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh in a 1974 bypoll, emerging victorious against the mighty Congress led by Indira Gandhi, and then retain it in 1977 post-Emergency, it is Bihar that would eventually emerge as his political battleground.
The reason for that was his association with Lalu Prasad.
Yadav, by then also having won a Lok Sabha poll from Badaun, came into contact with Lalu while trying to bring together Janata Parivar parties in the late 1980s. This was the time when the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress was facing the blowback of the Bofors scandal, and the Opposition was trying to mount a challenge against him.
The face of the Bofors fight against Rajiv was Janata Dal leader V P Singh. Sharad Yadav was considered the protege of the second pole in the party, Devi Lal. Between 1987 and 1989, on behalf of Devi Lal, Yadav came in touch with Yadav leaders across the cowbelt, including Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP and Lalu in Bihar.
Having won a Lok Sabha election in 1977 and later elected to the Assembly, Lalu was a rising star in the state. But he faced his first real test to emerge as a pan-Bihar leader in 1988, after the death of Lok Dal leader Karpoori Thakur. Lalu faced resistance from senior Yadav stalwarts like Vinayak Mandal, Anoop Lal Yadav and Gajendra Himanshu for the post of Leader of Opposition on behalf of the Lok Dal, even as other leaders like Jagdanand Singh, Nitish Kumar and Shivanand Tiwari backed him.
In came Sharad Yadav, and swung the case for Lalu, relatively junior to the others. That would pave the way for Lalu to become CM in 1990, heading a Janata Dal government.
JD(U) national spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha MP KC Tyagi, who proudly talks of sharing a room with Yadav from 1980 to 1988, attests to this, saying: “Sharad Yadav’s political stock rose under Devi Lal and he played a key role in making Lalu Prasad LoP and later CM.”
Veteran socialist leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Shivanand Tiwari recalls how he along with Nitish and Jagdanand Singh would go to Badaun to campaign for Yadav in a 1991 Lok Sabha bypoll. “We convinced sitting Janata Dal MP Ramendra Kumar Ravi to not contest.”
Following his brief stint as PM, when V P Singh opted out of the race of Janata Dal leader after the 1991 Lok Sabha poll defeat, Lalu ensured that Yadav became the party’s leader in the Lower House, defeating frontrunner George Fernandes.
By then, Sharad had made his move to Bihar, winning his first election from the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat that year, retaining it in 1996. By 1994, Fernandes and Nitish left Lalu’s side to form the Samata Party.
Post-1996, as Lalu was booked in the fodder scam case, the equations between him and Yadav changed. Yadav was among the senior party leaders who opposed Lalu naming wife Rabri Devi as CM in his place. In 1997, Lalu left the Janata Dal and formed the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, in a remarkable reversal of their ties, Lalu and Yadav took on each other from Madhepura. Yadav lost but returned to avenge his defeat in 1999. But in 2004, Lalu again beat him.
The Janata Dal sent Yadav to the Rajya Sabha. By 2002, the Samata Party was back in the Janata parivar, now called the JD(U). In 2009, Sharad regained Madhepura seat for one final time when Nitish Kumar-led NDA was at the peak of its popularity in the state.
After Nitish left the NDA in 2013, Yadav was left at a loose end – defeated in Madhepura by his former political manager Rajesh Ranjan or Pappu Yadav (RJD) in the 2014 polls.
By 2019, Yadav had moved to the RJD. This time, he again tried his luck from Madhepura, on an RJD ticket, but lost to the JD(U)’s Dinesh Chandra Yadav.
