Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi on Friday defended her son Tejashwi Yadav who has been missing in action since . results to the Lok Sabha elections were declared over a month ago. Speaking to reporters outside the Bihar Legislative Assembly in Patna, when reporters questioned Rabri about where Tejashwi is, she shot back, saying, “Aapke ghar (at your home)”.
She, however, immediately realised that her remark may create a flutter and went on to add that that her younger son is busy in some work and that he will be back soon. “Tejashwi ji will come soon, he is busy in some work, he is not sitting idle,” she said.
Rabri Devi’s remark comes amidst questions being raised over Tejashwi’s absence from active politics in the state for the past month. Tejashwi is the leader of opposition in the Legislative Assembly and is seen as jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s political heir. His absence at a time when the state is grappling with a spate of encephalitis deaths have drawn massive embarrassment for the RJD.
Meanwhile, the Monsoon session of the Bihar Legislative Assembly began on Friday with the opposition RJD and other parties MLAs protesting outside the Vidhan Sabha over the death of more than 175 children due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in Muzaffarpur. The opposition leaders also called for the resignation of Health Minister Mangal Pandey. However, Tejashwi Yadav was missing from the Assembly.
Last week, RJD’s vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had said that Tejashwi may have gone to England to watch the cricket World Cup. Posters announcing a reward of Rs 5,100 for information on Tejashwi’s whereabouts have also come up in Muzaffarpur.
Tejashwi, 30, has maintained a stoic silence on AES deaths in the state in the media as well as on Twitter. He made his last public appearance in Patna after chairing a meeting of the grand alliance parties, which was held within a week of the Lok Sabha elections results. Since then, RJD leader who is a strong critic of Nitish Kumar, has not made any public appearance.
In June, he has shared only three tweets from his official Twitter handle. While the first tweet came on the occasion of Eid on June 4, the second tweet came on June 9 on the occasion of the Birsa Munda death anniversary. The third and last one came on June 11, greeting Lalu on his birthday.
Notably, Tejashwi had vociferously raised the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal last year. He had criticised the BJP-JD(U) government and attracted media attention for his tough stand on the matter. But his sudden disappearance from the media has raised questions about his seriousness in dealing issues of the public.