‘Inviting him my prerogative’: Jagadanand Singh holds ground as Tej Pratap threatens boycott of RJD events

A day after Tej Pratap Yadav urged his father Lalu Yadav and demanded action against RJD state president Jagadanand Singh, even threatening a boycott of all party events until his conditions are met, Singh today said that it’s up to him to decide who is invited to a party event and who’s not. “Does everyone from the party attend every event of the party? They go only to those events where they are invited. They go to the Assembly when the Speaker invites. If I call them they’ll come to events. It is up to me to decide who is invited and who is not…Those invited by the students’ wing of the party will attend their events. Those called by the Youth RJD president attend their events,” said Jagadanand Singh reacting to Tej Pratap’s remark.

Tej Pratap yesterday held a press conference where he repeatedly showed RJD’s constitution and claimed that Singh had violated rules. To this, Singh said that the party’s constitution is not being violated. “Tej Pratap is accepting the party’s constitution and what can be better than this? For every disciplined party worker, the constitution is a set of rules and guidelines,” said Singh.

Tej Pratap today also alleged that Sanjay Yadav is not allowing him to talk to Tejashwi Yadav. “As soon as I started speaking to Tejashwi, Sanjay Yadav stopped me. He interrupted me and then took Tejashwi with him. Who is he to stop me from speaking with Tejashwi?” said Tej Pratap today after he went to meet his younger brother. Sanjay Yadav is the political adviser to Tejashwi Yadav.

A furious Tej Pratap had accused Jagdanand Singh of acting in a dictatorial manner practices. He said that Singh did not follow the party’s constitution while arriving at the decision to remove Akash Yadav whom Tej Pratap had been promoting as president of the student’s wing. Singh had appointed Gagan Kumar as the new president of the RJD student wing.

Yesterday, when the media posed questions related to Tej Pratap to Singh, he said, “Who is Tej Pratap? I am not accountable to Tej Pratap. I am accountable to Lalu Prasad, he is my president. Among 75 party members, he (Tej Pratap) is one of them. Does he hold any other post in the party?” said Singh.

Tej Pratap had hit back at Singh over the remarks. “Go ask my father (Lalu Prasad Yadav) ‘who is Tej Pratap’?…By saying ‘Who’s Tej Pratap Yadav, is he trying to blackmail us?” said Tej Pratap alleging that Singh and some people want to break our ‘Krishna-Arjun’s jodi (pair of Tejashwi-Tej Pratap).