Patna: Lalu Prasad returned to Patna on Sunday and highly placed sources said that the RJD chief would have spent a few more days in Mumbai, where he was receiving medical treatment, had it not been for the simmering tension between his sons Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.

" Laluj ji cut short his bed rest and came back to defuse the increasing differences between the two brothers," a close confidant of Lalu told The Telegraph under cover of anonymity.

"The open revolt of Tej Pratap has become a major embarrassment for the party as well as for Lalu ji. The party chief is trying his level best to convince his elder son that politics is not a one-day game and it takes years establish a party, but he (Tej Pratap) is not able to understand and is claiming that he is being neglected in the party."

Lalu's elder son has lately been on the rampage with his public outbursts over the way the RJD is being run.

RJD sources said it was Lalu who had called up Tej Pratap and told him to remove the social media post in which Tej Pratap had named two party insiders for spreading "canards" against him (Tej Pratap).

Soon after, Tej Pratap's speech the party's foundation day on July 5 - in which he revealed things like Tejashwi asking him to cut short his speech and declared himself the senior-most leader in the party - had also left the RJD red-faced.

Tejashwi left for Delhi that very day and has not returned even though his father is back in Patna.

The Lalu confidant who spoke to The Telegraph insisted that Tej Pratap is being misled.

"Whoever is his advisor failed to understand that he can pull the media attraction by useless statements but cannot establish himself as leader because party workers have already accepted Tejashwi as successor of Lalu ji," the senior RJD leader said.

"Let's see how Lalu ji will deal with the matter because he has come here with the purpose of making everything perfect which is looking really tough."

Lalu returned with MLA Bhola Yadav and daughter Misa Bharti.

"Doctors have advised him four months' rest and continuous dressing of his fistula operation," Bhola said at Patna airport.