Three out of four in Lalu family didn't vote in MLC polls

Patna, April 4 (IANS) All does not seem not well within the Lalu Prasad family after it came out that three out of four voters in the Bihar MLC elections on Monday did not exercise their right to franchise.

Voting for the 24 MLC seats elected by local body members was held on Monday. The Lalu Prasad family has four votes - his wife Rabri Devi who is a legislative councillor, daughter Misa Bharti who is an MP, and sons Tejashwi and Tej Pratap Yadav, who are MLAs from Raghopur in Vaishali and Hasanpur of Samastipur district, respectively.

On Monday, only Tejashwi Yadav cast his vote in Raghopur in favour of his party candidate while the other three did not go to the polling stations to cast votes.

Following there development, there was a buzz in political circles of Patna that all is not well within the family. During the campaigning for the MLC elections, only Tejashwi Yadav campaigned for RJD candidates of RJD while the other three were conspicuous by their absence.

However, party leaders close to Lalu family claimed that Tej Pratap is having health issues and hence, he did not vote while Misa Bharti was in Delhi. Rabri Devi is in Patna but she did not go there to use her voting right.

Tejashwi Yadav, after voting in Raghopur, said: "I believe that the majority of RJD candidates are winning in the MLC election. The representatives of Panchayat are not happy with the policies of Nitish Kumar and the NDA government in Bihar. Hence, they voted in favour of the RJD."

The RJD is contesting on 23 seats out of 24 and one seat was given to the Left under the coalition pact, but none to the Congress.

Meanwhile, the State Election Commission said that a 97.84 per cent turnout was registered in Bihar. The voting was started in 534 block headquarters in the state at 8 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. where members of the electoral college including MP of both the houses, MLAs, MLCs, and members of panchayats, wards and district councils participated.

The maximum voting was held in Vaishali, at 99.67 per cent while the lowest was in East Champaran with 91.7 per cent.