New Delhi: Former Bihar minister and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s estranged son Tej Pratap Yadav was languishing at the fourth spot at Mahua constituency in Vaishali district with 4,941 votes.
Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas)’s Sanjay Kumar is leading with 22,703 votes after seven rounds of counting at 12.35 pm.
Tej Pratap, the Janshakti Janata Dal chief, had earlier expressed confidence of winning the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) stronghold. This is the same constituency from where he won in 2015 by a margin of 28,000-plus votes.
This time, his immediate rival is RJD candidate and incumbent MLA Mukesh Kumar Raushan. The other candidates in the fray are Sanjay Kumar of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Indrajeet Pradhan of the Jan Suraaj Party.
The 37-year-old was banished from the RJD and the family in May. The bitterness has remained since then, with his younger brother Tejashwi Yadav campaigning against his brother in Mahua. In turn, Tej Pratap landed in Raghopur constituency— where Tejashwi is contesting the polls—to campaign for his nominee Prem Kumar Yadav.
While Tejashwi reminded voters to be loyal to the party and not the family, Tej Pratap made an emotional appeal to his voters, casting himself as the elder brother who was wronged with harsh punishment.
“He is still a child. After the elections, we’ll hand him a rattle… If he goes to our area, we’ll go to his area too. Then we’ll go to Raghopur,” the elder brother had said regarding Tejashwi campaigning against him in Mahua.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav had expelled Tej Pratap from the party for six years. “Ignoring moral values in personal life weakens our collective struggle for social justice,” Lalu Prasad Yadav wrote in an ‘X’ post. The “activities, public conduct, and irresponsible behavior” of his eldest son were not in accordance with family values and traditions, he added.
The move came after a Facebook post from Tej Pratap’s Facebook account showed him with a woman. The caption said that he had been in a relationship with her for 12 years. The post was quickly deleted, with Tej Pratap claiming that his social media account had been hacked and his photos had been improperly edited to harass and defame him and his family members.
Following this, Tej Pratap went on to form a coalition of five smaller parties under ‘Team Tej Pratap’. He later unveiled his party, the JJD, and declared himself the national president of the party.
The JJD has since fielded candidates in 43 constituencies, most of which are Yadav-dominated areas and RJD’s traditional strongholds.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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