All in the family: Storm clouds brewing in Lalu homestead?

Meet our homespun version of The Tudors. The Gandhis? No, not them. Despite being the First Dynasty, the Gandhis have rarely tilted swords too openly at each other after Maneka was thrown out by Indira Gandhi. Varun Gandhi politely calls his older cousin Rahul-ji and that’s that. Luckily we have plenty of other families ready to provide intrigue and skullduggery. Sankarshan Thakur gives us a peek into trouble brewing in the Lalu Prasad homestead in a front-page story in The Telegraph. We already know that daughter Misa is standing from Pataliputra. That sent longtime loyalist Ram Kripal Yadav crying foul right into the arms of the BJP. Now he is her opponent for the seat.[caption id=“attachment_1453985” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Misa Bharti. Image courtesy CNN-IBN[/caption] Now that kind of shifting loyalty when it comes to family interest is nothing unheard of in politics. In this election itself two political strategists are having grudge matches with their political bosses reports the Economic Times. Deepinder Singh Dhillon was strategist behind the last election victory of former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s wife Preneet Kaur of the Congress in Punjab but he didn’t get a ticket for the 2012 assembly election. Now the upset Dhillon is being fielded by the Shiromani Akali Dal against Kaur. The BJP’s Anurag Thakur, son of former Himachal chief minister Prem Kumar Dhamal had Rajinder Singh Rana as his strategist. Rana too didn’t get an Assembly ticket. He contested as an independent and won. Now the Congress has fielded him against Anurag Thakur. But old strategists can be brushed aside. Family is trickier. Thakur sees the Pataliputra episode is just the curtain raiser to bigger drama in elections ahead. Misa and her brothers Tej Pratap and Tejaswi are all likely aspirants to Lalu’s throne. At the moment writes Thakur there exists “among the siblings a fair bonhomie that comes from having lived out an open-house childhood around Lau’s court”. But the children are growing up. Tej Pratap became a godman in saffron robes for awhile. But now after a stint at an auto dealership he’s back in the fray this time wearing khadi or as Thakur puts it “the signature fabric of political intent.” Tejaswi is too young still but allegedly has Lalu’s favour. He features on RJD posters. Thakur recounts one anecdote to highlight the simmering tensions: Misa landed one afternoon at the RJD offices and ordered her father’s room opened when neither he nor Tejaswi was in town. She sat in her father’s chair and ordered people around for a bit, if only to underline succession wasn’t a sealed affair. If Misa manages to win from Pataliputra her brothers will rejoice but how wholeheartedly is the question. Now these are just three of Lalu and Rabri Devi’s nine children. These are the three showing political interest. Some of the other girls have been married off. But that does not mean we should count them out. After all whoever thought that one day Lalu would drag Rabri Devi out of the kitchen and install her in the chief minister’s office? There are plenty of heirs and spares in this political drama to come. Read Sankarshan Thakur’s entire story about sibling rivalry within the Lalu brood here.