Rabri says her progeny will join politics soon

Former chief minister Rabri Devi on Wednesday added a new dimension to the succession war going on in the erstwhile Bihar rulers’ family when she argued that not only her sons, but daughters too would join politics in future.

She was talking to reporters after taking over the membership of Legislative Council. Rabri was elected as MLC last month but could not take oath as she was busy with the marriage of her daughter Anushka in New Delhi.

“If Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, or for that matter Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, can join politics, why not my daughters?,” said Rabri, while responding to a question whether her cricketer son Tejaswi was being groomed to start a new innings on Bihar’s political turf.

“Beta bhi aayega, aur beti bhi. (Sons and daughters will join politics). But we will decide when. Har cheeze ka time hota hai (There is a time for everything). Besides, you should have the qualifying age too,” she said.

In the last one-and-a-half-decade of her public life (ever since she donned the mantle of chief ministership of Bihar in 1997), this was Rabri’s first no-holds-barred interaction with the media where she answered inquisitive journos’ questions with full confidence, and did not stammer one bit.

To a specific query that whether her action would lead to dynasty rule, Rabri retorted, “If the son of a judge can become a judge, an engineer’s son can become an engineer, a doctor’s daughter can become a doctor, then how come fingers are raised only at politicians.”

Rabri and Lalu have nine children including seven daughters and two sons.