For the first time in the last 40 years, the RJD chief Lalu Yadav will not campaign for state elections in Bihar.
Yadav, who is in jail for corruption since 2018, had handed charge to his son Tejashwi Yadav but has been overseeing party affairs from a prison hospital.
He is serving a four-year sentence in Jharkhand in a case linked to the misuse of funds meant for cattle fodder.
He has spent most of his term at a government hospital in Ranchi.
The RJD chief was granted bail today by the Jharkhand High Court in one of many fodder scam cases but he will stay in jail.
Lalu Yadav has been in jail since January 2018 but has been granted bail in many cases on grounds that he had already served 50 per cent of his sentence.
A product of post-emergency politics, Lalu Yadav was elected MP for the first time in 1977. Since then, he has been a key figure in Bihar politics. He had also missed last year’s Lok Sabha elections.
His face is missing from posters of the RJD which feature Tejashwi Yadav along with the slogan “Naya Soch, Nayi Bihar”.