Sharad Yadav was a prominent socialist leader who rose on the anti-Congress plank of the 1970s and remained a key presence in national politics for decades as he travelled through various offshoots of Lok Dal and Janata Party before diminished political equity and ill-health combined to push him to the margins in his last 🌼few years.
The veteran leader breathed his last on Thursday at a private hospital in Gurugram where he was rushed after he collapsed at his Chhatarpur ༺r🐲esidence in Delhi.
Tꦚhe socialist leader was suffering from kidney-related issues for a long time and regularly underwent dialys✤is.
Beginning as a student leader
Then a young student leader, it was his Lok Sabha bypo💞ll win from Jabalpur in 1974 as the opposition candidate against the Congress which invigorated its political fight against the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Emergency was soon clamped in 1975 and he won again in 1977, establishing his cr🐻edentials as one of the several leaders to have come out of the anti-Emergency movement, an image that kept him in good stead for decades as he remained an MP for the better part of the last nearly five decade𓆉s.
Serving as a minister
Yadav served as a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in the late 1990s. He was a minister in the ๊V P Singh government in 1989 and his backing to Lalu Prasad Yadav was seen important to the latter becoming Bihar's chief minist♎er in 1990 for the first time.
Both we🃏re to soon fall out as the Bihar leader dominated the politics in his state, overshadowing others and ensuring that it was🍸 his writ that ran.
Change in path
Incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav besides late Dalit leader Ram Viꦅlas Paswan were three key socialist leaders from the state who charted their own paths to take on the charismatic friend-turned-foe.
While Sharad Yadav was born in Madhya Pradesh and b✱egan his political career from there, Bihar became 💫his 'karma bhoomi'.
He and Lalu Prasad Yadav lock🦩ed horns in Lok Sabha polls and his win over the Rashtr🐈iya Janata Dal supremo in 1999 was a high point of his career.
His association with Kumar and their alliance with the BJP ended the 15-year long combined reign of Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi, who had taken over as chief minister after he was embro🌺iled in corruption cases.
Equation with Lalu and Nitish Kumar
Never a leader with a big base of his own, Sharad Yadav d🍌epended on state bigwigs like Lalu and Nitish to enter Parliament but enjoyed the aura and political weight which made him a strong presence at the high table of national politics in Delhi.
He was the conv🥀ener of the BJP-led Nation🐼al Democratic Alliance before he had to reluctantly leave after Kumar decided to snap ties with the saffron party in 2013.
He was instrumental in Kumar's alliance with arch rival Lalu Prasad Yadav as they joined hands to decima♑te the BJP in the 2015 assembly polls in Bihar.
Ironically, it was Kumar's decision to join hands with the BJP again in 2017 that snapped his patience with him 🧜as he decided to remain in the opposition camp and backed some of his supporters to float the Loktantrik Jaꦐnata Dal.
The new party, however, could never take off and his poor health virtually put an end to his active politics. He merged his party with the RJD in🅷 2022.
(With PTI Inputs)
