RJD in different clothes

“Be warned. The faces may have changed. But the people are still the same,” said Union Home Minister Amit Shah at his rally in Darbhanga last month. “Jungle raj will try to return wearing different clothes. ‘The responsibility for keeping them out is yours.”

- PLAIN POLITICS ADITI PHADNIS

The clothes have certainly changed. Tejashwi Yadav addresses public meetings in colourful T-shirts and jeans. White khadi is out. And the Union home minister's remarks highlight exactly what he wants to show — that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is under new management.

New? Maybe not so much. Everyone in Patna is talking about Sanjay Yadav, Bihar’s high-value import from Haryana. Tejashwi says Sanjay Yadav is “his philosopher, guide and tuition teacher”. But others, including his sister Rohini, say he is much more than that. Sanjay and Tejashwi met through Akhilesh Yadav around 2011. (There’s something about Haryanvi talent that the RJD attracts like a magnet. Lalu Prasad’s right-hand man and former Union minister Prem Chand Gupta was originally from Hisar and started out as an exporter-importer who made his money in Hong Kong and later turned Lalu Prasad’s advisor.) Sanjay was living a quiet life in Mahendragarh, Haryana, with a computer science background until he was thrown into the hurly burly of Bihar politics. If at least some of Tejashwi’s six sisters and one brother, Tej Pratap, are to be believed, Sanjay is responsible for driving a stake through the family’s heart especially after he was given a Rajya Sabha seat in 2024, overriding the claim of Abdul Bari Siddiqui, a longtime Lalu Prasad loyalist.