Row erupts over Lalu's son-in-law joining official meeting

The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar was on Friday embarrassed as video footages surfaced wherein a son-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav, founding president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal that helms the new ruling coalition, was seen at two official meetings.

Notably, both the meetings were presided over by Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, who was sworn in as a minister earlier this week with environment, forestry and climate change portfolio.

According to video clips, at the first meeting of officials that Yadav attended in his capacity as minister on July 17, Shailesh Kumar, married to his eldest sister Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP herself, was seen seated in the back row.

However, a day later, Kumar was again present at a meeting of the pollution control board, seated next to his brother-in-law minister.

The course of events drew strong condemnation from the BJP, which has lost power following the volte-face by the chief minister last week.

'Tej Pratap Yadav remains in news for all the wrong reasons. Now, as a minister he seems to have outsourced his duties to his brother-in-law,' said Sushil Kumar Modi, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader who had served as the state's deputy CM for over a decade.

'Lalu ji's son-in-law was not just present at the meetings. The meetings, where he had no business to be present, were in fact being conducted (sanchaalit) by him,' alleged Modi in a statement.

It is for the chief minister to answer the people of Bihar on this, he said.

'His new government has a large number of ministers with criminal records which confirms fears of the return of jungle raj in the state. The incident involving Lalu ji's son-in-law is a clear sign that the RJD supremo will try to interfere in the workings of the new government,' Modi, now a Rajya Sabha MP, added.

RJD leaders were, predictably, tight-lipped over the embarrassing episode while those in the chief minister's Janata Dal-United said they could comment only after it became clear why Shailesh Kumar was present at the two meetings.