The age discrepancy in the affidavits of two sons of RJD president Lalu Prasad, in which the younger one has been mentioned as one year older than his elder brother, is snowballing into a controversy with the BJP urging the Election Commission to probe the papers of the younger brother, Tejaswi Prasad Yadav.
“They have mentioned their age in the affidavit as it is given in their voter identity card...age in voter card is final...If age is written as 80 on the voter ID it will be final and has to be mentioned in the nomination papers,” the RJD chief told reporters.
The affidavit filed by Mr. Tejaswi shows his age as 26 years.
Like his father, he too took recourse to the voter card logic and said, “One has to enter the age as is written in voter ID,” Mr. Tejaswi told reporters.
“There might be a printing error in the voter ID,” he said and asked, “What’s so big about it?”
Meanwhile, the affidavit filed by the RJD chief’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav while submitting his nomination from the Mahua Assembly seat in Vaishali district shows his age as 25 years.
BJP State president Mangal Pandey urged the Election Commission to take cognisance of the matter and probe the nomination papers submitted by Mr. Tejaswi.
Mr. Pandey also alleged that there was “some design” in mentioning Mr. Tejaswi’s educational qualification as IX pass from Delhi Public School, RK Puram, Delhi.
“I am sure Mr. Tejaswi has studied above standard IX. Had standard X been mentioned in the nomination, the board certificate would have revealed his true age,” Mr. Pandey alleged.
