Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad, who turned 76 on Sunday, celebrated his birthday grandly at his 10, Circular Road residence here, with family, friends and party workers, in the same style as the days gone by.
Mr. Prasad cut a cake on Saturday night in the presence of his family members, including wife Rabri Devi, younger son and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, and eldest daughter Misa Bharti.
Celebrations began more formally on Sunday morning as Mr. Prasad’s supporters and well-wishers began gathering at his residence with bouquets and sweets to wish him. One supporter from Patna district brought a laddu weighing 76 kg. Another supporter from West Champaran brought 76 kg of Jardalu mangoes.
Leaders across the political spectrum in Bihar conveyed their wishes, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) national president Rajiv Ranjan, alias Lalan Singh. RJD State unit president Jagdanand Singh said that the party was celebrating Mr. Prasad’s birthday as ‘Samajik Nyay, Samajik Sabhav Diwas’ — a day of social justice and social harmony. The RJD’s youth wing organised a blood donation camp near the party’s office. Arrangements were made by the Health Department and several party workers donated blood on the occasion.
Rohini Acharya, who donated a kidney to her ailing father, arrived in Patna from Singapore to wish him on his 76th birthday. “People visit Char Dham (pilgrimage) but for me, Lalu-ji is my Char Dham and I have come for his darshan,” Ms. Acharya said, when asked about the reason for her visit.
Mr. Prasad’s oldest son, Tej Pratap Yadav, who was away in Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, conveyed his wishes over a video call, and said he too was celebrating his father’s birthday.
Incidentally, Mr. Prasad states in his autobiography Gopalganj to Raisina, co-authored with Nalin Verma, that he did not know his actual date of birth.
“While writing his autobiography, Lalu-ji himself told me that he does not know the actual date on which he was born. This date [June 11] is written on his certificates, so he has continued with it. He told me that his mother did not remember his date of birth. However, the year of birth is correct, that is, 1948. He was born in a poor cattle-rearing family and today, he is worshipped as a messiah of poor and downtrodden people. He is a leader of the masses,” Mr. Verma said.
“Lalu-ji is three years elder than Nitish-ji and they became friends in 1970 when Lalu-ji was a student at the Patna Law College and Nitish-ji was studying in the Bihar College of Engineering. Lalu-ji always refers to Nitish-ji as chote bhai (younger brother) and Nitish-ji calls him bade bhai (elder brother). Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Karpoori Thakur were mentors for both for them,” Mr. Verma said, when asked about the relationship between the RJD chief and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
Long before he became a Chief Minister and Union Minister, Mr. Prasad was known to stay in the servants’ quarters of the veterinary ground in Patna. He married Ms. Devi in 1973, and once said that he had received ₹3,000 as ‘tilak’ from her family at his wedding.
Mr. Prasad became the Chief Minister of Bihar in 1990, was jailed in the fodder scam case in 1997, and made his wife the Chief Minister at the time. He served as Union Railways Minister in 2004 in the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
