Bihar Assembly polls: RJD resolves to project Tejashwi as its CM candidate

The resolution was passed by the RJDs national council meeting, which was for the first time held in the absence of its founding president Lalu Prasad

The RJD on Tuesday resolved to nominate Lalu Prasads heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate in Bihar and defeat the Nitish Kumar dispensation in the Assembly election due in 2020.

The resolution was passed by the RJDs national council meeting here, which was for the first time held in the absence of its founding president Lalu Prasad as he is serving sentences in fodder scam cases in Ranchi.

The RJD also authorised its jailed supremo for forging alliances with like-minded parties and asserted that the 2020 Assembly polls will kick off the process for unseating the anti-people Narendra Modi government at the Centre in the next general elections.

The meeting-cum-open session was attended by Prasads two sons - Tejashwi and Tej Pratap who have not been on the best of terms since their entry into politics four years ago. His wife and former chief minister Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti, an MP, remained conspicuous by their absence.

Rabri Devi is in poor health and is hence away from public functions, and Misa Bharti is a member of the Rajya Sabha where the Citizenship Amendment Bill is being debated.

The meeting saw the presence of veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav, who had formed his own outfit Loktantrik Janata Dal after parting ways with Nitish Kumars JD(U) which he had headed after a long time.

Yadav had fought the Lok Sabha polls on an RJD ticket before merging LJD with the party.

RJD veterans like its national vice-presidents Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Shivanand Tiwary and state unit chief Jagadanand Singh were present.

The open session also saw former state minister Vrishan Patel, a party hopper whose father Birchand Patel was a towering OBC leader from Bihar in his times, returning to the RJD after a gap of more than a decade.