Veteran Socialist and former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav has died. He was 75. He died on Thursday at a private hospital in Gurugram where he was rushed after he collapsed at his Chhatarpur residence in Delhi. The news of his death was confirmed by his daughter, Subhashini Sharad Yadav, who took to Twitter, saying, “Papa nahi rahe (Papa is no more).”
The veteran socialist leader had been suffering from kidney-related issues for years and had been undergoing regular dialysis. According to a statement from the Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurgaon, he was brought to the emergency ward in an unconscious and unresponsive state.
“On examination, he did not have any pulse or recordable blood pressure. He underwent CPR as per ACLS protocols. Despite best efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 10.19 pm,” the statement said. He is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son.
Yadav, born on July 1, 1947, at Babai in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh, was a gold medallist in engineering before he ventured into politics. He first burst into the political scene in the 70s through anti-Congress movement.
Yadav, then a young student leader, made his foray into electoral politics in 1974 as a Lok Sabha bypoll candidate against the Congress. He won the seat in a major upset and the win would help mould him as a leader in the political fight against the Congress and the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Yadav’s success was important for the JP movement and a huge setback for the Congress party. In a year, Emergency was declared in India and Yadav was prominent presence in many mass movements leading to his arrests under the controversial MISA in the 1970s.
Yadav won again in 1977, and the win established him as a leader who managed to come out of anti-Emergency movement. However, he lost the seat in the next election, following which he shifted base to the UP before moving to Bihar, which went on to be his forte.
Yadav became the national general secretary of the Lok Dal in 1979, but eight years later, he founded the Janata Dal (JD) in 1988, under the leadership of V.P. Singh. The subsequent events helped the party take on Congress in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls.
When Singh became prime minister of a short-lived coalition government (1989-90), Yadav was inducted into the cabinet as head of the Textiles and Food Processing Industries Ministry. Yadav was also one of the key players who pushed the then PM V P Singh to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations.
Yadav had also supported Lalu Prasad Yadav in his quest to become the Bihar’s chief minister in 1990 for the first time, but the duo had a fall out later. In the 1990s, Yadav contested against former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in Madhepura for the Lok Sabha elections. Though the seat was dominated by voters from the Yadav caste, he beat Lalu Prasad which earned him a ministerial berth in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Sharad Yadav is known for forging alliances and splits, and it was his long association with Nitish Kumar and the BJP that ended the 15-year long combined reign of Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi.
In 1997, Yadav became president of the Janata Dal, but a split in the party ensued after Yadav decided to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government. The faction led by H.D. Deve Gowda strongly opposed that move and left the Janata Dal to form a new party that became known as Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S).
Yadav remained an NDA ally till 2013 before he had to reluctantly leave after Nitish Kumar decided to snap ties with the saffron party in 2013. He was instrumental in Nitish Kumar’s alliance with arch rival Lalu Prasad Yadav as they joined hands to decimate the BJP in the 2015 assembly polls in Bihar.
Ironically, it was the Kumar’s decision to join hands with the BJP again in 2017 that snapped his patience with him as he decided to remain in the opposition camp and backed some of his supporter to float the Loktantrik Janata Dal. The new party, however, could never take off and his poor health virtually put an end to his active politics. He merged his party with the RJD in 2022.
