Bihar government on Friday announced a day of State mourning following the death of veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his Deputy and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, RJD president Lalu Prasad and a host of other State leaders expressed grief and sorrow over the death of the leader.
Mr. Prasad, who is undergoing treatment related to kidney transplant in Singapore, expressed his condolences in a video message remembering Yadav as a great socialist leader. Governor Phagu Chouhan and State BJP leaders too condoled the death.
A veteran
Yadav, a seven-term Lok Sabha MP (won four times from Bihar’s Madhepura parliamentary constituency) and three-term Rajya Sabha MP, had once defeated Mr. Prasad from Madhepura in 1999 by nearly 30,000 votes.
In the subsequent General elections in 1998 and 2004, it was Mr. Prasad who won the seat defeating Yadav. While in 2014 Yadav lost to Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, in 2019 he was defeated by JD(U) candidate Dinesh Chandra Yadav.
Yadav was said to have been instrumental in making Lalu Prasad the Chief Minister of Bihar for the first time in 1990.
