Lalu Yadav was received by his family at the airport and driven straight home. (PTI)
Lalu Yadav had
missed his son Tej Pratap Yadav's engagement ceremony last month. The 69-year-old veteran politician, serving time for the fodder scam in the 1990s, reached home in Patna late on Thursday evening on a three-day parole to let him attend his eldest son's wedding later this week.
Tej Pratap Yadav
is to marry Aishwarya Roy, the daughter of six-time Rashtriya Janata Dal lawmaker Chandrika Roy and a cabinet colleague of Lalu Yadav in many governments. The young couple had exchanged rings in the presence of some 200 guests at a Patna hotel.
The wedding is at a much larger scale at the city's veterinary grounds. A member of the Yadav household said the guest list runs into several thousand - another suggested it could touch 10,000 - and includes top political leaders from across the country. Friends as well as political rivals alike.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who ended his party's grand alliance with Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Party and the Congress, is expected to set aside their political rivalry and make it to the wedding. So will Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, the senior BJP leader
who played an instrumental role to get central agencies probe Lalu Yadav, sons Tej Pratap and Tejashwi and daughter Misra Bharti.
When
Sushil Kumar Modi hosted a reception for his son's marriage, Lalu Yadav had made it a point to show up and
spend two hours to bless the newly-weds. Mr Modi is
expected to reciprocate that gesture.
But Lalu Yadav, who was received by his family at the airport and driven straight home, will have to be careful not to violate parole conditions imposed by the jailors.
In Patna, Lalu Yadav will have to stay home or the venue of the wedding and has been banned from speaking to the media, his party supporters or make any political statement. If he does, he can be hauled right away back to Ranchi's Birsa Munda central jail.
"Lalu has been released on parole with his hands and feet tied," Rashtriya Janata Dal's Shivanand Tiwary had complained when he heard about the tough conditions. Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi promptly hit back, reminding him and other RJD supporters that the conditions had been imposed for good reason. Former chief minister Lalu Yadav has been convicted in four corruption cases.
Lalu Yadav didn't appear to mind the conditions as he stepped into his house on Thursday evening, his grandchildren more than making up for the absence of slogan-shouting party workers. "Nanaji zindabad (Long Live grandfather)," they shouted.
Not that he really had a choice.
The RJD chief
has spent more than four months in Birsa Munda jail following his conviction in multiple cases of the fodder scam and he has a long way to go. In March, the judge who pronounced him guilty in the scam ordered that he serve two jail terms of seven years. It was the fourth case in which he had been held guilty and the courts are yet to decide a few more cases.