On July 19, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son Tej Pratap Yadav threatened to release video clips of alleged physical and verbal abuse he and his family suffered after his marriage. He released an over 7-minute long video as a reaction to a report about his divorce case where he was shown in poor light by a news portal.
In the video, Yadav said that despite court orders against publishing any reports on his divorce case, some channels are publishing misleading and fake reports. He said, “Those who want my family to break down are paying these channels to publish such derogatory news. Even I have over 1,000 videos to show how I was abused, how my mother was beaten up, how my parents, sisters and brother were abused.” He further added he had been maintaining silence for the last four years since the divorce petition was filed.
Tej Pratap and Aishwarya Rai got married in 2018. She is the granddaughter of late former chief minister Daroga Prasad Rai. The marriage lasted less than six months, after which a divorce petition was filed in court. The couple was last seen together in a mandatory counselling session around a month ago.
The day Aishwarya left the house, she had alleged to have stayed there to save the marriage. She had stormed out of the house in the presence of journalists and alleged that she was kicked out. Following the brawl between the couple, her father left RJD and joined Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U). In the 2020 elections, Rai failed to retain his Parsa assemble seat.
Though Yadav’s father-in-law had vowed to avenge what had happened to her daughter before leaving the party, Yadav, instead of blaming him for the alleged misleading reports in public, targeted RSS in his video. He alleged, “the RSS” and “the other side” in his divorce case were conspiring against his family.
He further urged the media to leave the case alone as the court has also restrained journalists from reporting the case proceedings.
