RJD meeting, and a spat: Of seats of power and chair positions

In that, another RJD leader who is out of favour, and perhaps seeking to redeem himself with the new party dispensation led by Tejashwi, might have overreached himself. Shyam Rajak, who handled the arrangements of the National Executive, did not place Tej Pratap on either side of Lalu Prasad, not even next to senior leader Sharad Yadav, occupying one of those strategic chairs himself.

Not scheduled to speak, Tej Pratap sought “two minutes” from father Lalu to speak, and then let it loose on Rajak, calling the party national general secretary, among other things, “an RSS agent”. Tej also said that his personal assistant who had called up Rajak to seek minutes of the National Executive meeting, had been subjected to choice abuses.

An audio released by Tej had purportedly Rajak saying: “During my days as a minister, I used to directly call fellow ministers. But this (expletive used) gets his PA to speak to me.”

Both Rajak and Tej walked out of the National Executive soon after. Rajak tried to defend himself saying he was merely “a Dalit who cannot raise voice against raja log (kings)”. The day ended with news that Rajak had taken ill and was admitted to a Delhi hospital.

For Rajak, 68, it was another inglorious turn in a career that, at its height, saw him so close to Lalu that he and Ram Kripal Yadav (now Pataliputra MP) were referred to as the RJD supremo’s Ram and Shyam. A product of the JP Movement, like Lalu and most of the cream of Bihar leaders, Rajak was once a member of the Lok Dal and then one of Janata Party president and former prime minister Chandra Shekhar’s aides.

Belonging to the washermen SC community, Rajak’s first electoral success came in 1995 when he won the Phulwari Sharif Assembly seat on the Janata Dal ticket. He was an Energy Minister in the Rabri Devi government. He retained his Assembly seat in 2000, February 2005 and November 2005 polls as an RJD nominee.

In 2009, Rajak crossed over to the JD(U) and won his seat in both the 2010 and 2015 polls. Nitish Kumar made him Food and Consumer Protection Minister, and then Industry Minister. Around 2019, Rajak’s relations with Nitish soured, and in 2020, he returned to the RJD. By then, the RJD that Rajak had known was changed, with Tejashwi in the saddle.

Rajak was not fielded in the 2020 Assembly polls, and while he technically holds a senior position of national general secretary, he no longer commands much influence in the party.

RJD insiders say the National Executive, the first by the party after returning to power in Bihar and after making its national ambitions known along with new ally JD(U), was a chance for Rajak to redeem himself. Instead, he let the limelight on the first day be stolen by the ungainly spat with Tej Pratap.

The meeting had anyway started on a sour note for the RJD, with Bihar president Jagdanand Singh staying away. Singh is said to be sulking over son Sudhakar Singh having had to resign as minister for his remarks against the Nitish Kumar government.

Party leaders are also surprised that Rajak did not show more tact towards Tej, knowing his mercurial nature and that Tej was already stung by the fact that in his second term in power, he had been relegated to the low-profile Environment and Forests Ministry.

The line-up at the dais on the stage that day went like this: Tejashwi sitting to the left of Lalu, followed by senior leaders Ram Chandra Purve and Abdul Bari Siddiqui. On Lalu’s right sat Sharad Yadav, followed by Rajak.

The next day of the two-day National Executive, Rajak, seemingly recovered from his hospital stint, was back on the RJD dais. This time, he sat right in a corner. Tej Pratap did not show up.