Tej Pratap Hints He May Contest Lok Sabha Polls From Father's Seat

Bihar minister Tej Pratap Yadav has indicated that he was ready to contest Lok Sabha polls from Saran seat which his father and RJD president Lalu Prasad had won many times.

The maverick leader, during a visit to Saran district, replied to queries from journalists about the possibility of contesting from Chhapra, the name by which the constituency was previously known.

"As of now, I am a minister. But, if there is a demand from the public, then why not? No leader would like to refrain from an electoral contest if supporters want him to take the plunge", Mr Yadav told reporters.

Notably, Lalu Prasad's political career had kicked off with a victory in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls from Chhapra, which he represented again in 1989, only to vacate the seat a year later when he took over as the chief minister of Bihar.

In 2004, Mr Prasad, who gave up the chief minister's chair upon facing charges in the fodder scam, again contested Lok Sabha polls from Chhapra and Madhepura and retained the former.

Until being disqualified in 2013, on account of conviction in a fodder scam case, Prasad had been the MP from Saran, the name by which the seat came to be known after delimitation.

The seat has since been with BJP's Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who in 2014 defeated Rabri Devi, the wife of Prasad whom she had also succeeded as the chief minister.

In 2019, the RJD gave a ticket to Chandrika Roy, father of Tej Pratap Yadav's estranged wife Aishwarya, which angered the mercurial leader who ended up throwing his weight behind a rebel candidate.

Although Yadav is his parent's elder son, he has remained content with playing second fiddle to younger brother Tejashwi, his father's clear favourite who is currently the deputy chief minister.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)