Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad received a rousing welcome on his return to the state capital from New Delhi on Sunday evening after more than three years.
The RJD supporters went berserk with excitement as Lalu, sporting a green cap and a green gamchha around his neck, came out of the Patna airport accompanied by wife Rabri Devi and eldest daughter Misa Bharti.
His sons Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, currently at loggerheads with each other, were present at the airport to receive him.
Cries of “Lalu Prasad zindabad” rent the air as RJD workers waved party flags and showered petals on their leader and his vehicle while he waved at them.
RJD supporters lined the road to Rabri’s 10, Circular Road residence in the city and a large number of them were present there to witness his return — an event that has the potential to spark off a turbulence in state politics. The vehicle carrying Lalu went straight inside.
“I was not in Patna for a long time. I am going there today. By-elections are going to be held at Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan in Bihar. I will try to go there, too. The doctors have given me medicines and allowed me to go. I will have to return for medical check-up after a month,” Lalu said in Delhi before catching the flight to Patna.
He attacked the Congress over its recent exit from the Opposition Grand Alliance in the state on the ground that the RJD unilaterally fielded a candidate from Kusheshwar Asthan (a seat contested by the Congress) in the 2020 Assembly elections.
“What is an alliance with the Congress? What is it? Should we have given the seat to it for losing and forfeiting the security deposit?” Lalu said.
Reacting sharply to the All India Congress Committee’s Bihar in-charge and former Union minister Bhakta Charan Das’s allegations that the RJD was in cahoots with the BJP, Lalu used a vernacular slang to call him an “idiot”.
The RJD chief also rubbished claims by various NDA leaders that he would not be able to campaign because he had been granted bail on health conditions.
“They are not right,” Lalu said. He also downplayed the rivalry between Tejashwi and Tej Pratap and said there was no fight between them.
“Both are my sons. There is no anger between them,” he said.
The RJD chief is scheduled to campaign with Tejashwi at Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan on October 27. The two Assembly seats are going to polls on October 30.
The RJD chief had been away from Bihar after being convicted and incarcerated in fodder scam cases. He is suffering from severe diabetes, kidney and heart ailments, and was mostly under treatment at various hospitals in Ranchi, Mumbai and Delhi during this period.
He was granted bail in April this year, but was stuck in Delhi due to health reasons.