A day after the Bihar government issued a letter allotting RJD leader Rabri Devi a different house, the party said the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council would not move out of her current address — 10, Circular Road, Patna — and claimed the decision seemed “politically motivated”.
“Rabri Devi won’t vacate the house because it has a lift for Lalu Prasad ji, who needs it because of health reasons, and there are security reasons for retaining the house. The house, unlike the one allotted, has adequate space to keep the combined security of her and Lalu Prasad. And the decision looks politically motivated and smacks of spite. This house was first allotted to Rabri Devi as former CM and later as LoP, Legislative Council, after the Supreme Court made it clear that the government was not obliged to allot a house to a former CM. I also want to know why 10, Circular Road, cannot be earmarked as the residence of the LoP, Council, just as the government has earmarked houses of the CM, Deputy CMs, LoP of the Assembly, Speaker, and Legislative Council chairman. We would again request the government to withdraw the order and earmark the existing residence for the LoP, Legislative Council.” RJD state president Mangani Lal Mandal told The Indian Express.
The RJD leader’s clarification, which may potentially lead to a run-in between the NDA government and the primary Opposition party, came a day after the state Building Construction Department’s joint secretary Shiv Ranjan wrote to Rabri Devi, telling her that she had been allotted 39, Hardinge Road, which is about a kilometre from her current address. “The proposal has the due approval of the competent authority,” the letter says. Senior JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Choudhary, one of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s three closest aides, is in charge of the Building Construction portfolio.
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Apart from the sprawling bungalow, there is also a house for RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav that was built when the entire premises got a facelift when Tejashwi was Deputy CM and the Building Construction Minister between 2015 and 2017, said an aide of Lalu Prasad.
“It is not graceful to issue such an order. It would have been great had 10, Circular Road been earmarked as the official residence of the Legislative Council’s LoP,” said RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari, echoing what Mandal said.
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In response, JD(U) national spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad told The Indian Express, “The government is well within its right to earmark another house to Rabri Devi. The Patna High Court, in its 2019 order in response to the 2017 petition of Tejashwi Prasad Yadav (who was asked to vacate the 5, Deshratna Marg house he had been allotted as Deputy CM), made it clear that the government is not obliged to allot a house to a former CM or any former minister. And how long will Lalu Prasad’s family talk about houses for themselves?”
“It is an ‘allotment of house’ order, which is the prerogative of the government,” said BJP national spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan. “It is also absurd to say that just because Rabri Devi has been living in the house for 20 years, she cannot be allotted another house … The party’s family-centric ideology can be seen in the fact that the RJD’s Delhi office is called Rabri Bhavan.”
Fluctuating fortunes
In contemporary Bihar political history, 10, Circular Road, which has a big lantern beside its gate, is perhaps the most important address after 1, Aney Marg, the CM’s official residence.
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It was allotted to Rabri Devi in 2006, months after the RJD lost power after 15 years. Rabri Devi who continued to reside at 1, Aney Marg, through the tumult of 2005: after the fractured mandate that February, President’s Rule was imposed, and the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) finally won in the October polls. Soon after Nitish took oath as CM on November 24, 2005, the government issued orders to Rabri Devi to vacate the CM House. The Yadav family, however, left only after the month of “Kharmas”, considered inauspicious by devotees, was over on January 15, 2006. The government, however, ensured that the Yadavs would not have to move too far and allotted the sprawling bungalow behind the CM House.
However, the fortunes of both the family and the party continued to fluctuate in their new house. In 2009, the RJD took a massive hit in the Lok Sabha elections as its tally plummeted from 26 to four seats (out of 40). Lalu, who contested from two seats, lost to his once close friend Ranjan Prasad Yadav of the JD(U), but won from Saran. The worst was to follow in the Assembly elections the following year as the RJD’s tally fell from 54 seats to 22 (out of 243), its lowest to date.
The RJD founder’s legal troubles continued and in 2013, he was convicted in the fodder scam case, disqualified from the Lok Sabha, and barred from contesting elections. The political situation became tougher for the party the following year with the rise of Narendra Modi on the national political stage. However, it managed to retain its four Lok Sabha seats and, in 2015, returned to power for the first time in a decade as Nitish ditched the BJP to join hands with his one-time rival Lalu. The Mahagathbandhan alliance swept the elections, winning 178 seats, with the RJD emerging as the single-largest party with 80 constituencies. It marked the rise of the next generation of Yadavs, as both of Lalu’s sons won their first elections. Tejashwi then became the Deputy CM and Tej Pratap a minister in the Nitish government.
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The optimism was short-lived as the JD(U) leader returned to the NDA in July 2017. In 2019, another political jolt awaited the RJD as the NDA won 39 seats. The following year, the sense of optimism returned as the RJD again finished as the single-largest party in the state with 75 Assembly seats, falling just short of returning to power with its Mahagathbandhan allies. The party made another return to power in 2022 as Nitish took yet another U-turn and joined hands with the Mahagathbandhan, and Tejashwi became the Deputy CM for the second time. But this time, too, the government did not last long as Nitish came back to the NDA in January 2024, just before the Lok Sabha polls.
While Misa Bharati, Lalu and Rabri Devi’s eldest daughter, defeated the BJP’s Ram Kripal Yadav and wrested control of the Pataliputra Lok Sabha seat in her third attempt, the party again managed to win just four seats. And then came the shock in the recent Assembly elections in which the party’s tally fell to 25, its worst performance in 15 years.
Following the election, there were also reports of a rift in the Yadav family as one of Lalu’s daughters, Rohini Acharya, hit out at her brother’s political advisors, months after Tej Pratap was expelled from the party and the family over controversies surrounding his personal life.