The political wedding of the season

After congratulating the young couple from the Yadav familes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the newly-anointed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the VIP section

February 27, 2015 02:19 am | Updated 02:19 am IST - New Delhi:

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh with Tej Pratap andRaj Lakshmi in New Delhi on Thursday.  Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh with Tej Pratap andRaj Lakshmi in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

It resembled a rally more than a wedding celebration, as the Janata Parivar faithful strained behind a red cordon inside the Ashoka Hotel’s Convention Hall on Thursday evening. They held up mobile phones to capture the stream of political A-listers entering to greet the newly weds — Tej Pratap, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh’s grandnephew, and Raj Lakshmi, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad’s youngest daughter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flown down to Uttar Pradesh’s Safai on February 21 to attend the tilak ceremony that preceded the wedding and posed for photographs seated between the two Yadav patriarchs; Thursday evening saw a repeat performance.

On his way out after congratulating the young couple, he spotted newly anointed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the VIP section.

He stopped, walked in to greet a surprised Mr. Kumar and seated himself between the two Yadavs again, smiling and posing for the gaggle of photographers. The conversation was on the Finance Commission reforms that will see more money flowing to the States.

After Mr. Modi — dressed in a crisp white kurta and churidar, teamed with an understated pale grey bundi — had departed, Mr. Kumar was inundated by admirers, all of whom wanted ‘selfies’ with him.

Earlier in the evening, among the first VIP guests to arrive were BJP patriarch L.K. Advani and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav played his role as one of the hosts, as the groom is his nephew. Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar arrived with his daughter Supriya Sule and party colleague Praful Patel.

President Pranab Mukherjee arrived after 9 pm, minutes after the Prime Minister left.

The Union Cabinet was represented by Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Harsh Vardhan, Prakash Javadekar and MoS Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Congress was represented by former Chief Ministers Sheila Dikshit and Bhupendra Hooda, and ex-cabinet minister Salman Khurshid. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gurcharan Kaur were also among the visitors. A gasp went up as the stunning Priyanka Vadra accompanied by husband Robert entered, with flashbulbs and mobile phones popping.

For Mr. Lalu Prasad, whose political fortunes have dipped in recent years, the wedding of his youngest daughter was a very special occasion. She was born in 1990, the year he became Chief Minister – and thus was named Raj Lakshmi, the harbinger of good fortune.

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