Wife or daughter? Lalu in a fix over RS nominations

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 8

RJD chief Lalu Prasad has dropped the idea of sending both his wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti to the Rajya Sabha this time. The biennial elections to the Upper House of Parliament are scheduled to be held in March-April this year.

Sources close to the RJD chief said since the nomination of former Union minister and senior party leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to the Rajya Sabha was almost certain, “Lalu has to make a tough choice between his wife and daughter” for the second slot, which his party is entitled to have, given its present strength in the Assembly.

Five Rajya Sabha members from Bihar are retiring this July and all of them belong to the JD-U. Given the respective strengths of parties in the newly formed Assembly, the ruling allies—RJD (80 MLAs) and JD-U (73 MLAs)—can send only two members each with the support of Congress (27 MLAs) and the fifth seat will go to the Opposition BJP (58 MLAs) in the House of 243. For this year’s elections, a Rajya Sabha candidate needs the votes of 41 MLAs.

“Initially, Lalu wanted to send both his wife and daughter to the Rajya Sabha, as he was trying to negotiate with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to share one seat from his party’s quota with a promise to accommodate a JD-U candidate in the next elections. But given the compulsions that Nitish is facing now, it was decided to field candidates as per our respective strengths,” said a senior RJD leader.

Since the party has no representation in the Rajya Sabha at present and most of the national politics is being decided in the Upper House, the RJD leader said, “It was decided to have seasoned Raghuvansh Babu so that the party can have a credible voice.” Now, the toss would be between Rabri and Misa and the call for Lalu seemed tough, he added.