Lalu Prasad Yadav To Contest President Polls but…

Lalu Prasad Yadav
Lalu Prasad Yadav

Lalu Prasad Yadav claims that he has already booked a flight ticket to Delhi, where he offer to file his presidential nomination papers on June 15.

In the upcoming presidential election of India, Lalu Prasad Yadav plans to throw his hat in the ring, faithful in his belief that there must be a Bihari in the contest. However, currently he is not the chief of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Lalu Prasad Yadav

A resident of Saran district, which coincidentally bears his famous name “Karmabhoomi” (land of work), Mr. Yadav claims he has already booked a flight ticket to Delhi, where he filed his nomination on June 15. Letter has been offered to be filed.

He had also filed his nomination papers in 2017, when the election was between Ram Nath Kovind, the then governor of Bihar, and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, a native of the soil.  

“My papers were disqualified last time because these were not supported by acceptable number of proposers. This time, I am better prepared”, Mr. Yadav told the media.

A resident of Shree Yadav Rahimpur village in Saran’s Marhaura assembly constituency, Mr Yadav is barely 42 years old, young enough to be the son of an RJD president, though, like the latter, he also looks after a large family.

“I practice agriculture for a living and engage in social work. I have seven children. My eldest daughter is married,” said Mr. Yadav.

It is not surprising that familiar people refer to them as “Dharti Pakad” (cling to the earth), an adjective that has come to be associated in India’s political lexicon with those who like to contest elections for adventure and publicity. We do.  

Mr Yadav scoffs at his chin and recalls with pride that the RJD supremo “blamed me for the defeat of his wife Rabri Devi in ​​the 2014 Lok Sabha elections”.

Rabri Devi, a former chief minister herself, had contested from Saran which was previously represented by her husband who got disqualified in 2013 following his conviction in the fodder scam.

She lost to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who rode the Narendra Modi wave, by a margin of around 50,000 votes.

Lalu Prasad Yadav polled less than 10,000 votes and forfeited his deposit.

Undeterred, Mr Yadav again jumped into the fray in 2019 and polled about six thousand votes.

“I keep trying my luck, from Panchayats to Presidentship. If nothing else, I may come to hold the record for contesting the maximum number of elections,” he said with a deadpan expression.