A lot of people did a double take when news emerged that Aishwarya Rai was going to marry Lalu Prasad’s eldest son Tej Pratap Yadav. Some even asked: Was the beauty queen-turned-actress leaving Abhishek Bachchan and turning cougar?
And then it came to light that this was an entirely different Aishwarya Rai, a namesake who had a completely different claim to fame.
Here’s everything you need to know about this Aishwarya Rai:
- Aishwarya Rai is 25 years old and the daughter of former Bihar chief minister Daroga Prasad Rai, who ruled the state in the 1970s.
- Her father Chandrika Prasad Rai, who was elected to the Bihar Assembly six times, also served a Cabinet-rank minister at the state level.
- Her nickname is Jhipsi, which is also a local term for a light name or drizzle. She was apparently given the name because it drizzled on the day she was born.
- She is the eldest of three siblings. She has a sister named Ayushi and a brother named Apurva.
- Aishwarya, who hails from Chhapra, did her schooling from the Notre Dame Academy in Patna.
- She obtained a degree in History from the prestigious Miranda House college under Delhi University.
- Aishwarya then earned an MBA degree from Amity University. This has been one point where haters seem to be needling Tej Pratap Yadav, who reportedly dropped out of school to pursue a career in active and electoral politics.
- Aishwarya and Tej Pratap’s match was reportedly fixed by his mother Rabri Devi – herself a former chief minister of Bihar.
- Their engagement is taking place on April 12, while the wedding ceremony is scheduled for May 12. Both will have been organised in Patna.
- Although Aishwarya comes from a political family, her entry into politics – a la Dimple Yadav, wife of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, in Uttar Pradesh – has been ruled out.
Bringing good luck for Lalu and clan?
Aishwarya may be viewed by Lalu and clan as bringing good luck and cheer. After all, they have been haunted by a number of allegations, convictions and political setbacks in recent times.
For example, Lalu himself was – between December 23, 2017, and March 24, 2018 – convicted in three different cases pertaining to the fodder scam. This was in addition to the 2013 conviction in a case pertaining to the same scam. This has effectively rendered him unable to contest elections, but he continues to be chief of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Meanwhile, Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti – along with husband Shailesh Kumar and mother Rabri Devi – is under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case. She and Kumar are currently out on bail.
Tej Pratap himself suffered a setback last year when the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), led by current Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, decided to end its coalition with the RJD and the Congress and seek support for its alliance government from the BJP.
The move meant Tej Pratap would no more be the state health minister – a portfolio he held at the time when this change in guards happened – and his brother Tejashwi Yadav would lose the post of deputy chief minister.
