Three Rashtriya Janata Dal MLAs–all associated with political families–on Thursday joined the Janata Dal United. Jayvardhan Yadav, who represents Paliganj in Patna district and Chandrika Rai and Faraz Fatmi, MLAs from Parsa in Saran district and Keoti in Darbhanga district respectively come from the Muslim-Yadav combination of the RJD.
While Jayvardhan is the grandson of famous Yadav leaders of yesteryears, Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, former transport minister Chandrika Rai in the Grand Alliance government is the son of former Bihar chief minister Daroga Prasad Rai. His daughter, Ashwarya Rai was married to the eldest son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, but the two have in all practical purposes got separated. The divorce petitions are still in the court.
Faraz Fatmi, a doctor by profession, has little political clout and is only known because of his father M A A Fatmi, the fomer Union minister of state for HRD in the first Manmohan Singh government. The senior Fatmi parted ways from RJD after the party gave ticket to Abdul Bari Siddiqui to contest the Darbhanga Lok Sabha seat last year. He later joined the Janata Dal United and ever since then speculations were rife that the son too would jump on the Nitish Kumar bandwagon.
Jayvardhan’s exit is somewhat surprising. His grandfather Ram Lakhan swerved as a senior minister in several Congress governments before the advent of Lalu Prasad in 1990. He was the most towering Yadav leader till then.
However, after the advent of Lalu he too joined the then Janata Dal and became its MP from Ara Lok Sabha seat between 1991 and 1996. Ram Lakhan’s son Prakash Chandra Yadav also got elected to the Lok Sabha from Barh on the Congress party ticket in 1984. Three days back three other RJD legislators had joined the Janata Dal United.
