Lalu Prasad Yadav better, ‘no change in RJD leadership for now’

PATNA: RJD state president Jagadanand Singh on Tuesday ruled out any immediate change in the organizational structure to make any new political arrangements in view of party’s national president Lalu Prasad’s poor health. He said Lalu will soon return to Patna.
Singh was alluding to the likely elevation of Lalu’s younger son and the leader of opposition in the state assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav to the post of the party’s acting president. “It is all speculation,” Singh said.
“There is no plan for any political change in the immediate future,” Singh also said, adding that “no political” meaning should be read in his own meeting with Lalu on Sunday and Monday, and even in the sudden rush of Tejashwi to Delhi on Monday.
Singh had a meeting with Lalu at the latter’s daughter Misa Bharti’s residence where the RJD chief has been recuperating since his discharge from the AIIMS where he had been admitted after getting bail in a fodder scam case.
“It is quite strange. They have heaped cases on Tejashwi. When he goes to Delhi in connection with the same and to consult lawyers, they ask why he is in Delhi!” Singh said, adding: “Tejashwi has to also see his ailing father. There is nothing other than that.”
Singh said before Lalu was granted bail, his condition was bad since “he was seriously ill in the jail. But his condition has improved and today he is better than what he was, but he has to abide by the advice of the doctors”.
He also said suitable constructions and arrangements were being made at his Patna residence, so that Lalu could live there adhering to the advice and guidelines from the doctors attending on him. “Doctors have advised him not to climb up or down the steps. Once, suitable arrangements are made, he will come to Patna and also travel between Patna and Delhi for medical treatment,” Singh said.
During his July 5 virtual address from Delhi at the RJD’s foundation day function held in Patna, Lalu had said would return to Patna and visit every district.
However, the state BJP has been refusing to accept that the elevation of Tejashwi to the post of the RJD’s acting president is not in the pipeline. “Like Congress, the RJD is also a party of a family. The leadership of the party will be passed on to someone in the family. It could be Tejashwi, and there is also Rajya Sabha member Misa Bharti,” state BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand said, adding that former minister Tej Pratap Yadav has been sidelined, even though he is older than Tejashwi.