Tejashwi Yadav is seen as the heir apparent to Lalu Prasad.
Tejashwi Yadav is the son of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav who is behind the bars after being convicted in the multi-crore fodder scam. Tejashwi, seen as Lalu's political heir, is the leader of opposition in the outgoing assembly. He is also the youngest opposition leader of a legislative assembly.
Tejashwi was born on November 9, 1989, a year before his father became the Chief Minister. He is the younger son of Lalu and Rabri Devi.
He started his career as a cricketer but later inherited politics from his family. Tejashwi was a student of the Delhi Public School, RK Puram, Delhi. Tejashwi's first love was cricket and he even went on to become the captain of his school team. He was included in the Delhi Daredevils, an IPL team in 2008. But didn't get a chance to play even though he remained in the team for five consecutive sessions. He was later included in the Jharkhand Ranji team. But his cricket career never took off
Tejashwi then joined politics which came naturally to him. In 2015, he became a first-time MLA from Raghopur in Vaishali district and took oath as Deputy CM. He was just 26 at that time. Among all his siblings, Tejashwi is seen as the heir apparent to Lalu Prasad. His elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav was Health minister in the grand alliance government headed by Nitish Kumar.
Tejashwi, 31, has led the RJD into new-age politics in the absence of his father. But he has failed to prove his mettle so far. He led the party during the 2019 general elections, but RJD couldn't open its account. Tejashwi faced criticism from alliance partners who questioned his leadership and alleged that his non-serious attitude was to be blamed for the debacle. The alliance had won just one of the 40 parliamentary seats last year. In this Assembly elections, he is once again leading the grand alliance and is the chief ministerial candidate. Today, he holds complete command over his party and makes decisions on his own.
As the deputy CM from November 2015 to July 2017, he shared the stage with Nitish Kumar at every government meeting and event. But he remained at the receiving end of opposition BJP's criticism over corruption. His name was mired into dubious land deals over which the BJP attacked him repeatedly.
