Patna: The JDU on Sunday picked up Tej Pratap Yadav's movie innings to claim that RJD chief Lalu Prasad's elder son is focusing elsewhere because he has no stake in the party.

Tej Pratap had last week shared on Twitter the poster of his upcoming Hindi film, Rudra: The Avatar, which is being billed as the former Bihar health minister's Bollywood debut.

JDU spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar claimed on Sunday that despite Tej Pratap having more talent, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav is being promoted in politics and hence the elder brother is miffed.

"Tej Pratap has more ability than Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, with better educational qualification. Tej Pratap had won the election with a bigger margin than Tejashwi and he is also the elder son. As per the Indian culture, it is the elder son who gets the preference if a question arises on who the successor of the father will be. But in the present situation it seems that Tej Pratap is being neglected in the party and miffed with the way he is being treated he has focused on films," Neeraj declared.

Neeraj's needling comes against the backdrop of differences within the RJD in general and Lalu son's in particular coming to the fore recently.

Last month, Lalu played mediator between Tej Pratap - who had been ranting for two days about how the RJD is being run - and Tejashwi.

Lalu had told his elder son that his grievances, whatever they may be, would be sorted out but there was no need to go to the media to register protest; things should be settled behind closed doors.

The advice seemed to have worked. Tejashwi and Tej Pratap fed each other pieces of a cake that was cut at 5 Deshratna Marg for Lalu's birthday as mother Rabri Devi looked on. Asked if he was trying to create differences between the brothers, Neeraj said that he has no such intention but if more than one member of the same family will be in politics someone has to be at the receiving end like Tej Pratap.

The RJD hit back at Neeraj over his comments.

"Tej Pratap ji is full of talent and people love him a lot," said RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari. "He rules the hearts of people, and the youth in particular. Just the poster of his film has hit the JDU leaders so hard, they will go mad when his film releases. The JDU leaders are just scared of his talent. The more the JDU leaders will hate, the more the stature of Tej Pratapji will grow."

On Saturday, Tej Pratap was seen sweating it out at a gym on Boring Road, presumably shaping up for his upcoming film.

He has not shared too many details of his movie but stressed that it is a family film devoid of vulgarity.