Amid Coronavirus Scare, Tej Pratap Yadav Puts Mask On Brother Tejashwi

In a display of brotherly affection, Lalu Yadav's sons Tej Pratap and Tejashwi spread awareness about the highly contagious coronavirus in Patna today.

The older Tej Pratap put on a mask on his mercurial younger brother Tejashwi Yadav and handed him a bottle of hand sanitizer, a gesture aimed to spread awareness of the novel coronavirus pandemic that has affected over 80 in India and over a lakh around the world.

This comes on a day when the government declared masks, including N95, and hand sanitisers as ''essential commodities'' in the wake of the coronavirus scare leading to shortages and black marketing of these items.

The brothers, whose mutual affection gets marred by frequent political turf wars, posed for pictures with their face masks on outside their mother Rabri Devi's residence.

Tejashwi Yadav urged the people to remain vigilant, avoid crowded places and strictly follow guidelines issued by the government as the coronavirus claimed its second victim today in India.

Tej Pratap Yadav has often taken potshots at his younger brother since last year after Tejashwi Yadav decided to field Chandrika Rai, Tej Pratap's estranged father-in-law, from the Saran constituency of Lalu Yadav. Tej Pratap, who filed for a divorce just months after his wedding, had hit out at Tejashwi for not keeping the seat "within the family".

Tejashwi, the politically weightier of the two Yadav sons, is widely seen as his father's successor and the one to inherit his legacy.

To fight the highly contagious coronavirus, several steps have been taken by the centre and state governments. Most state governments such as Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka have shut down schools and banned public gatherings. Movie theatres have also been shut down at many cities.