Tejaswi used the platform to defend his father's recent conviction in a fodder scam case
In this age of the social media where political parties like the Aam Aadmi Party use Facebook and Twitter to drum up support, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janta Dal has sprung a surprise and begun embracing it.
On Sunday, Mr Yadav's son, 25-year-old Tejaswi, hosted a tea party for 50 of his Facebook friends after putting up an open invite on his page.
The 25-year-old politician is increasingly becoming the young face of Mr Yadav's RJD and is turning to methods his father would have disapproved just a few years ago.
And so, in between tea, coffee and snacks, the conversation between Tejsawi and his Facebook friends went on for a few hours, ranging on topics from Bihar's backwardness to Mr Yadav's corruption cases, to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Tejaswi used the platform to defend his father's recent conviction in a fodder scam case, after which the Bihar strongman was stripped of his Lok Sabha membership and barred from contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Tejaswi told his friends, " People say Lalu Yadav ruled Bihar for 15 years and actually runied it. But you tell me, at that time, what was the need of the hour? Social justice? Did he not do it," to resounding claps.
Some of the younger Yadav's effects seem to be rubbing off on Lalu himself. Back in the early 2000, Mr Yadav had famously said he had no idea about IT (Information Technology). Today, his pictures and tweets are on this page. His official Twitter handle that debuted a few days ago is updated daily by Tejaswi.
Tejaswi says, "Lalu ji now has a Twitter account. We have page. Social media is a very good platform. We are trying to increase the use of IT in our party."
Lalu and Tejaswi's chief political rival Nitish Kumar had embraced social media much earlier, with a blog that saw its first post in 2010 and a few posts subsequently. But the Bihar Chief Minister subsequently gave up, saying he had no time and that conventional campaigns worked better. Mr Yadav and his son are now hoping that what did not work in Nitish's favour, can actually help them turn a new leaf in Bihar.