After 4-year absence, Lalu set to visit Bihar

Party insiders said Prasad would stay at 10 Circular Road, the official residence of former CM and his wife Rabri Devi, under constant supervision of doctors and stay away from the crowd to avoid any health hazard.

Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, who has been away from the state for almost four years, mostly in jail in Jharkhand before being shifted to New Delhi for treatment, is set to visit the state to campaign for his party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for bypolls in two assembly seats of Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan, to be held on October 30, party officials said.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad (ANI)

Bhola Yadav, a former MLA and close aide of the RJD chief, said Prasad would address a few election meetings in both the constituencies on October 25-26 and return to New Delhi, if his health allows. “Tentatively, Prasad would join electioneering for Arun Kumar Sah and Ganesh Bharti, in the fray from Tarapur in Munger district and Kusheshwar Asthan in Darbhanga district, on different dates through helicopter,” he said.

Prasad, who was serving jail terms following his conviction in fodder scam cases since December 2017, has been away from political activity, including from the 2019 parliamentary polls and Bihar assembly elections in 2020, barring a few posts on the social media. He was granted bail in April this year and has since been recuperating at his daughter and Rajya Sabha member Misa Bharti’s residence in New Delhi.

Both the seats bound for bypolls were won in 2020 by chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), which is in the fray there again.

In the past, Kumar has sought to play down the impact of Prasad’s return to active politics, saying he was working from jail anyways.

The Congress, which had contested from Kusheshwar Asthan in 2020 as part of the RJD-led alliance but lost by over 7,000 votes, has fielded candidates for both seats this time after a fallout with the ally. The party, too, sought to make light of the possible campaigning by Lalu Prasad. “In 2010, RJD broke ties with Congress and teamed up with Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP and contested the assembly elections when Lalu Prasad was free. And the result was disappointing for RJD,” said Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra.

Party insiders said Prasad would stay at 10 Circular Road, the official residence of former CM and his wife Rabri Devi, under constant supervision of doctors and stay away from the crowd to avoid any health hazard. “A separate enclosure equipped with all emergency medical facilities annexed to the former CM’s bungalow is still not ready. He will come to Patna once the doctors declare him fit to go out of Delhi,” said Bhola Yadav.