As Lalu’s family gets another son, the one who never escaped eclipse – Tej Pratap Yadav

It was yet another controversy for the seventh child of Lalu and Rabri Devi, born in April 1988, after six sisters.

That was a joyous time for the family. Having started off from the peon quarters in Patna, Lalu was now a two-term MLA from Sonepur. The RJD chief is fond of recalling how strong winds were blowing the day Tej (meaning fast) was born, which is how he got his name.

Lalu and Rabri had two more children after Tej, son Tejashwi and daughter Raj Lakshmi, in 1990. If Tejashwi means ‘illustrious’, Raj Lakshmi’s name marked Lalu becoming CM for the first time. He stayed in the post till 1997, followed by wife Rabri till 2005 (minus seven days in 2000, when Nitish Kumar took over as CM).

This meant that Tej spent his formative years in the sprawling official residence of the CM – 1, Anne Marg. Sisters Misa Bharti and Rohini Acharya, both of whom would become doctors, were much older and not much company. Tejashwi, just over a year younger, had been sent away to Delhi to study. Admitted to a school in Patna, Tej was virtually left to his own devices. Growing up in close proximity to power, he – by all accounts – was sucked in.

Visitors to the CM’s House in the 1990s recall Tej, when barely in his teens, pulling pranks that often went out of hand. Says a politician close to Lalu: “At this time, Tej’s father was the most powerful person in the state. He would hover around Lalu. Once, he misbehaved with some senior ministers who had come to the house, and an embarrassed Lalu had to make excuses for him.”

A senior journalist talks about Tej throwing stones at the media or snatching their cameras when they came to cover the CM. Lalu tried to laugh this away initially. “Once Tej struck a journalist with a bat, and Lalu got very angry. It got to a point that the RJD leader would urge visitors to counsel Tej.”

A lonely youth

Towards the end of his teen years, Tej developed an interest in sports bikes and learning how to fly. “Once, he insisted that his father take him on a round of Patna in a helicopter. Lalu had to oblige,” says a source close to the family.

During the recent conflict with Pakistan, Tej put up photos of himself dressed in the uniform of a pilot and sitting in the cockpit of a small plane, offering his “services” to the government.

In 2006, came a turn in the RJD’s fortunes, with the party losing power to former Lalu comrade Nitish Kumar. Sources say it was Tej who dragged his feet over vacating the CM’s bungalow, for four months. A source close to the family says Tej, 18 by then, could barely hide his disappointment at moving out. “He would ask where he would play cricket now or take his bike out for rounds.”

By then, the family had reconciled to the fact that Tej, who had cleared Class 12 with difficulty and dropped out of college within a few months, was not going to study further. Meanwhile Tejashwi was enjoying some spotlight already, having been picked up by the Delhi Daredevils IPL cricket team. Tejashwi spent four seasons with them, though without taking the field once.

A member of Lalu’s extended family says: “The RJD chief always found it difficult to tackle Tej. Rabri Devi had a soft corner for him and would play peacemaker between her two sons.”

Left behind

If Tejashwi was finding his feet in Delhi, Misa was expanding her political role. She helped Rabri with party and governance affairs when she was CM and also later, with Lalu embroiled in court cases and in and out of jail.

In 2010, Lalu indicated for the first time that Tejashwi would carry forward his political torch. He brought a 21-year-old Tejashwi to the RJD office in Patna and introduced him to the media. Tejashwi spoke briefly but with confidence about his father’s journey and his “quest for social justice”.

Tej, it seems, still did not make much of this “cameo” by Tejashwi. Instead, he turned to religious affairs, with pictures doing the rounds of his prayer room at his mother’s residence where he lived – 10, Circular Road. He declared himself a disciple of Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna, dressed up as the gods at times, and started frequenting Vrindavan.

Perhaps taking this as a sign that Tej wasn’t interested in politics, and given his interest in motorcycles, Lalu gave him a vehicle showroom in Aurangabad to run. Tej named the showroom ‘LaRa’, taking the first two letters from the names of his parents.

Tejashwi’s rise

As the courts tightened their noose around Lalu, the RJD chief became restless about setting in place his political legacy. RJD leaders say that in a Haryana leader called Sanjay Yadav, introduced to Lalu by Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, he found the best mentor and friend for Tejashwi.

Sanjay, who came from a political family too and is now a Rajya Sabha MP and RJD leader, had a fair understanding of socialist politics. He would meet Tejasjwi at Lalu’s Delhi residence and hold long conversations with the young RJD leader, who groomed himself watching speeches of leaders and reading books on Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia.

In 2013, Tejashwi took the next step and started a yatra across Bihar. He made it a point to take the blessings of Tej, apart from his parents, before embarking on the tour, “to galvanise the youth force”.

Those in the know say this was when Tej started getting rattled though, in public, he remained a doting brother. He finally flexed his political ambitions when the 2015 Assembly elections saw the RJD, in the company of the JD(U), win 178 of the 243 seats and return to power. Nitish became the CM and Tejashwi was named his deputy. Tej, who had won from Mahua, got the Health Ministry and the unofficial No. 3 slot, ahead of senior ministers.

By this time, Tej had floated a Dharmnirpeksh Sevak Sangh. Described by him as an apolitical forum to take on the RSS, it was seen as a bid by Tej to remain politically relevant but never took off.

In 2017, Nitish pulled down the government, and took his JD(U) back to the BJP. With power gone, Tej’s influence plunged.

It was around this time that the family arranged his marriage with Aishwarya Rai. It was supposed to be a political alliance of heft, between two of Bihar’s most powerful Yadav families. Aishwarya was the granddaughter of former Bihar CM Daroga Prasad Rai and the daughter of RJD leader and former minister Chandrika Rai.

Not many were surprised when Tej and Aishwarya, who had done higher studies in Delhi, developed problems soon after. An RJD leader says this was a bad phase for Tej: “Aishwarya and he were incompatible. On the political front too, Tej was not being considered for any important position in party affairs.”

As Tejashwi became the undisputed RJD leader ahead of the 2020 Assembly polls, Tej’s space kept shrinking. His demand that his supporters get tickets did not go down well and were often ignored.

Tejashwi, on the other hand, further rose in his father’s esteem when he ensured that the RJD finished as the single-largest party in the 2020 elections. With Nitish flipping towards the RJD again, the RJD came to power.

For Tej, there was further “humiliation”. “While he was the Health Minister in 2015-17, he was relegated to the relatively low-profile Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change this time.”

This Mahagathbandhan government too fell prematurely after Nitish’s somersault to the BJP. Out of power, Tej kept making news for gaffes such as getting a constable on his security detail to dance at his Holi celebrations, leading to his suspension.

There was a buzz in RJD circles that Tej got his own political party registered. However, if he did, Tej never talked about it or gave it any shape.

The expulsion

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, both Misa and Rohini Acharya, who made news for donating her kidney to father Lalu, got RJD tickets. Misa won from Pataliputra. Acharya lost narrowly to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Saran, and remains an articulate voice on social media. With the other Lalu and Rabri children not interested in politics, it is only Tej now who is the nowhere man – ostracised by his family and left with little of a career.

At such a point, the controversy stirred by the photos he put up with a woman he identified as a girlfriend of 12 years – he deleted the post later – provided the RJD a good opening to sideline him. The party hopes that his expulsion would take the wind out of the BJP campaign that Lalu and family had cheated Aishwarya; technically, Tej is still married to her, with divorce proceedings on.

RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta said: “Individual conduct and social responsibility are hallmarks of public life. On these two fronts, Tej was against the ethos of the party. Hence, our national president has taken the right decision.”

Aishwarya’s father Chandrika is expected to contest on the JD(U) ticket in the coming Assembly elections. The RJD, incidentally, expects Tej to be offered an NDA ticket too – in a bid to embarrass Lalu – and are not sure he would turn it down.

On Tuesday though, Tej seemed ready for truce, offering his wishes to Tejashwi on the birth of his son. “With the infinite grace and blessings of Shri Banke Bihari Ji, I have had the good fortune of becoming a bade (elder) papa,” Tej posted on X.

Tejashwi has been careful in his reaction to Tej’s photo row and expulsion, as have his sisters. “He (Tej) is free to make decisions in his personal life. He has to decide what is good and what is bad,” Tejashwi said.

All this while, as her elder son’s distance from his family grew, it was mother Rabri who had been the bridge, visiting him regularly. Tejashwi’s official residence is barely 250 metres from the 10, Circular Road, home where his parents stay.

If it was space that Tej once craved, he has more than he needs now.