Karishma Roy, cousin of Tej Pratap Yadav’s estranged wife Aishwarya, joins RJD ahead of Bihar polls

Tej Pratap Yadav has expressed dissatisfaction over Karishma’s entry into RJD.

Bihar Assembly Elections: The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Thursday inducted Karishma Roy, first cousin of Tej Pratap Yadav’s estranged wife Aishwarya Rai. The entry of Karishma into RJD comes just months ahead of the assembly elections, expected to be held later this year. According to reports, Karishma was inducted into the party to take on Chandrika Rai, sitting RJD MLA from Parsa (Vidhan Sabha constituency).

Chandrika is expected to ditch the RJD and join Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). Chandrika Roy himself has said that he is likely to join JD(U) soon. Chandrika’s daughter Aishwarya was married to Lalu Prasad Yadav’s elder son Tej pratap Yadav. However, the relationship didn’t last long as Tej Pratap filed for divorce with Aishwarya within months of marriage.

Reports suggest that Tejashvi Yadav was looking for an alternative in case Chandrika resigns from Parsa assembly seat and Karishma was inducted to fight from this traditional RJD seat. However, Tej Pratap Yadav has expressed dissatisfaction over Karishma’s entry into RJD. He has reportedly said that he was not aware of this and no one asked him before taking this decision. He said that he did not have any confidence in anyone in that family, which “destroyed” his life.

The assembly election in the state is just months away. The state is expected to see a two-way contest between BJP-JDU combine and RJD. In the last assembly elections, RJD and JDU had contested the elections together and secured 80 and 71 seats respectively. The BJP could win just 53 seats, 38 less than what it had got in 2010.