Lalu Prasad elected RJD chief for 9th time in row

Patna, Jan 17: Lalu Prasad was on Sunday formally elected the Rashtriya Janata Dal national president for the ninth consecutive term.

The re-election of the former railway minister for another three-year term was a foregone conclusion since he was the only candidate in the fray for the top party post.

"Lalu Prasad has been formally elected the RJD national president for the ninth consecutive time," party's national election officer Jagdanand Singh said.

The formal voting to elect Lalu Prasad, 67, was held at the party's national council meeting here, with more than 700 delegates from 24 states attending.

Lalu Prasad, who filed his nomination papers at the RJD state headquarters here on January 8, has been the RJD chief since the party's formation on July 5, 1997, after a split in the Janata Dal.

Soon after his re-election, hundreds of party leaders and workers garlanded the former chief minister and presented flowers to him amid slogan-shouting.

After his re-election, Lalu Prasad said the RJD will play an important role in uniting like-minded parties on one platform to end the "misrule" of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Earlier, the RJD chief -- a former Bihar chief minister -- reached the meeting venue at S.K. Memorial Hall here along with his wife Rabri Devi and sons Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap and RJD state president Ram Chandra Purbey besides scores of other senior leaders.

The RJD won 80 of the 243 seats in the Bihar assembly to emerge as the single-largest party after the November 2015 polls.

IANS