This is the story of one of India’s most prominent political dynasties, born in the heart of Bihar. The Yadav family, led by Lalu Prasad Yadav, has ruled headlines, elections, and controversies. Lalu Prasad Yadav began his public life as a student leader, first as general secretary and then as president of the Patna University Students’ Union in the early 1970s.
Bihar politics was dominated by upper-caste Hindus, leading to a “disconnect with Bihar’s social base,” said Indian Express.
This was because the majority of Bihar’s population was not upper-caste.
Several movements to bring the backward classes into mainstream politics had taken place since the mid 1960s.
And by the early 1970s, a massive students movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan had picked up steam. This was also the movement that made political leaders out of Lalu and Nitish Kumar.
Lalu was the President of the Patna University Students Union in 1970.
His activism brought him close to Jayaprakash Narayan and the anti-Emergency movement.
Also during this time, he got married to Rabri Devi.
And the first thing he told his new bride was, “I am the leader of a big movement going on in Bihar. Jayaprakash Narayan is leading us. Anything can happen... I can be arrested and put behind bars. I expect your cooperation.”
By 1977, at just 29, he was elected as the youngest Member of Parliament from Chapra.
This was when India was undergoing a dramatic transition, primarily because the 21-month-long "Emergency" had ended, and the Congress party faced its first-ever electoral defeat at the national level.
During the 1980s, Lalu emerged as an icon for the marginalised, consolidating support among backward classes and minorities.
Decades later his son Tejashwi would recount, “Things like discrimination, untouchability, and restrictions on ting prevailed, and Lalu ji flipped the script.”
Lalu’s ascent to Bihar Chief Minister in 1990 coincided with two major events: the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, and the Ram Mandir movement led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Mandal Commission recommended a 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in government jobs and educational institutions to promote social justice.
But it was met with fierce and widespread opposition, particularly from upper-caste students in northern India, with some even self-immolating in 1990.
Lalu backed Mandal, rooting his politics in social justice and caste empowerment.
He publicly opposed the Ram Mandir movement, even arresting BJP leader LK Advani during the Ram Rath Yatra.
He said in his autobiography, “I was clear in my mind that Advani’s Yatra was a direct and real threat to the minority community and to communal harmony.”
His implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations earned him the “Mandal Messiah” title.
In 1993, he also supported English teaching in schools when the Hindi-speaking states opposed the “elitist” language.
His pro-minority and pro-backward stance, popularly called the MY, or Muslim-Yadav, formula, not only made him invincible through the 1990s but also shifted the axis of Bihar’s politics from upper-caste dominance to backward-caste assertion.
He said…
“Muslim-Yadav is my trusted vote bank and they are always loyal towards me, but it is a wrong perception that other castes do not support me.”
Upper castes stopped dominating Bihar politics ever since 1990 when Lalu rose to power.
He was credited with the “dramatic financial turnaround” of railways during his time as the Union Railway Minister from 2004 to 2009.
The Railways were said to be heading for bankruptcy due to several things like subsidised fares, freight business moving to roads instead of trains, among other things.
But under Lalu’s leadership, the Indian Railways managed to pull in a revenue surplus of Rs. 13,000 crore by March 2006.
His business model became a sought-after subject. After meeting with IIM students, he was invited to address students from Harvard and Wharton business schools as well.
About 137 students from the US visited the National Rail Museum to learn how Lalu turned around the fortune of Indian Railways.
While he achieved success at the national level, there was law and order chaos in his home state… and the phrase “jungle raj” was born.
The term “Jungle Raj” was actually first used by the Patna High Court over waterlogging and poor drainage…
Source: The Indian Express
but its connotation changed once the opposition picked it up, haunting the Yadav family down to the younger generation of politicians as well as ters.
“Jungle raj” became synonymous with unchecked crime, frequent kidnappings, and murders.
Source: The Indian Express
The most infamous was the fodder scam, a multi-crore corruption scandal leading to Lalu’s arrest, conviction, and repeated jail time.
This not only tainted his own leadership but also damaged public faith in governance.
Migration from Bihar was said to increase during and after his tenure, beginning in 1990, largely driven by economic distress, lack of employment opportunities, and poor state infrastructure.
An Institute of Development Studies report by IAS Santosh Mathew and political economist Mick Moore noted that Lalu “kept public sector jobs vacant rather than appoint
qualified people who were mainly from the upper castes”.
The Central Bureau of Investigation also alleged that Lalu gave railway jobs to people who couldn’t even write their names, because they’d handover land to the Yadav family in return.
Administrative dysfunction meant that development stalled, basic infrastructure crumbled, and the state lagged behind the rest of India in key social and economic indicators.
After Lalu resigned amid corruption charges linked to the fodder scam, he gave his seat to someone no one saw coming… it was his wife Rabri,
who’d never held a public office.
Even as she became Bihar’s first woman chief minister in 1997,
Lalu was said to run things from behind the scenes.
The woman whom Lalu described as a “shy and somewhat apprehensive” bride, served as CM three times since 1997.
Yadavs became the central focus under the Lalu-Rabri regime, and that alienated the non-Yadav OBCs, EBCs and Dalits, and this was the cue for Nitish Kumar to enter as the new champion in Bihar.
Two of Lalu-Rabri’s nine children became the popular successors in the Rashtriya Janata Dal party.
But things changed a lot, between 2015 and 2025.
In 2015, the two brothers, Tej Pratap and Tejashwi, debuted as ministers in Bihar, when the RJD and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United coalition won Assembly polls.
Tej Pratap was 26, and Tejashwi was 25 years old then.
Tej Pratap often projected himself as a rebel, making bold campaign moves and asserting his influence with moves such as occupying seats meant for senior party leaders.
He became known for his eccentricity.
As health minister, his clumsy media interactions drew attention. And then he was reported to consult astrologers about matters of the state, and bringing a cow to his ministerial bungalow for “positive energy”.
Then his marriage to Aishwarya Rai, the granddaughter of former Bihar CM Daroga Rai, which was seen as a political alliance, publicly broke apart.
He filed for divorce, and she accused him of abuse and erratic behaviour.
On the other hand, Tejashwi was seen as the more mature of the brothers. He had been fighting from the family’s bastion of Raghopur, and winning every time since 2015.
Lalu’s heir apparent served as Bihar’s Deputy CM twice between 2015 and 2024.
By the time Bihar went to polls in 2025, Tejashwi had become a bigger force.
The younger brother had his way to become the CM candidature within the opposition INDIA bloc while the older brother had to form his own party to compete with his family.
The two brothers were contesting from neighboring seats, Raghopur and Mahua.
Behind this split was something personal.
Both the brothers had their respective romantic relationships.
While Tejashwi’s relationship ended in marriage, Tej Pratap’s relationship became the reason why he split from not just his family but also their political party.
Just about five months before the Bihar elections, a photo popped up on Tej Pratap’s Facebook page.
In it, Tej Pratap was sitting beside a woman called Anushka Yadav. The caption read,
“We have known each other for 12 years and we are in love. We’ve been in a relationship for the last 12 years.”
Things escalated fast from here.
The post disappeared from Tej Pratap’s profile.
He said his account was hacked, and the post was an attempt to defame him and his family.
But his father Lalu wasn’t having any of it. He dismissed Tej Pratap from RJD as well as their family, saying, “Disregard for moral values in personal life weakens our collective struggle to achieve social justice.”
The Times of India said of the elder son:
“Once introduced as a rising heir to his father's legacy, Tej Pratap has e lved into a political liability, a family outcast, and, most curiously, a man whose personal whims have routinely overshadowed the party’s agenda.”
Meanwhile, Tejashwi was being pushed as a young leader who was going to change things in Bihar.
He was seen rallying with Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi, promising government jobs to every household, opposing corruption, finding a solution to migration, and curbing crime, among other things.
He said he may be young, but his promises were mature.
He also departed from Lalu’s MY formula, saying, “The RJD has always been an inclusive party representing all sections of society, not just the Muslim-Yadav base.
But his father’s so-called “jungle raj” legacy still loomed large.
The Indian Express reported that many youngsters, who’d vote in the 2025 Bihar elections, weren’t even born when the RJD last governed the state.
But the term jungle raj was still going around.
While the second generation of the Yadavs have tailored their politics according to what the people want, it remains to be seen if it will be enough to wash out the past.
