Patna, Aug. 8: Enacting the yatra of Mahatma Gandhi from Chandrahia village to Motihari in East Champaran, this April former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had undertaken a 7km-walk behind his "chacha" chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Today, Tejashwi and his brother Tej Pratap started another yatra from 10 Circular Road, which will take him to East Champaran, West Champaran, Sitamarhi and Muzaffapur in the next three days before they return to Patna.
The yatra has been re-christened as the Janadesh Apmaan Yatra and one of the first programmes of Tejashwi is to seek forgiveness in front of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Gandhi Maidan in Motihari "for joining hands with a man who joined the killers of Gandhi".
The send-off was an emotional affair with both sons touching the feet of their father Lalu Prasad and mother Rabri Devi before proceeding to Motihari. Rabri put tikas on the foreheads of her sons.
Before leaving, Tejashwi slammed the man whom he used to address as chacha.
"He (Nitish) called for a Sangh Mukt Bharat but joined the Sangh himself. Nitish Kumar fled from the battlefield. He has insulted the mandate given by the people in 2015. The people of Bihar will take their revenge. I will tell people the truth behind the break up of the Grand Alliance," he said.
The doting father and mother stood firmly for their sons.
"You can call Nitish Kumar the Paltu Ram. He has betrayed the mandate. He played a key role in getting the CBI file an FIR against my son. He was envious of my son's growing popularity. This message will go to the people of the state through this yatra. Thus, the yatra has been started from the land of Mahatma Gandhi," said Lalu.
When Tejashwi undertook the yatra with Nitish in April he was living under the shadows of the chief minister. Those who attended the Padyatra said people's response to the padyatra was lukewarm.
"There were more policemen than people on the roads and Tejashwi could hardly be seen," remembered a person who was at the Padyatra.
Tejashwi at that time had started to feel the heat of a series of charges levelled by the now deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on account of property acquired by him at a young age. It is no wonder Modi asked Tejashwi to seek forgiveness in the land of the Mahatma for acquiring unaccounted wealth.
However, with Lalu too busy in fighting the legal battle, the hands of Tejashwi is full as he has not only come out of the shadows of the man who was his chief minister and ally but also scored points in public speech and garnered better crowd response than he did the last time.
He also has to galvanise supporters to come to Patna's Gandhi Maidan on August 27.
He has shown promise in his speech inside the Assembly last month during the trust vote. Incidentally, Nitish Kumar has started all his yatras from Champaran and it has paid political dividends. The question being asked in political circles is if Mahatma Gandhi's land will be lucky for Tejashwi too.
