Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad exchange greetings during the

pre-wedding ceremony

of Lalu’s daughter with Mulayam’s grandson in Lucknow on Sunday.

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LUCKNOW: Three days after their political realignment Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav united socially with the ‘Roka’ (pre-engagement) ceremony of Tej Pratap and Raj Lakshmi here on Sunday.Tej Pratap is a newly elected MP from Mainpuri and the grand nephew of SP chief Mulayam Singh while Raj Lakshmi is RJD president Lalu Prasad’s youngest daughter.The RJD chief along with his son Tejaswi Yadav, five sons-in-law, MP Prem Gupta and the party’s UP chief Ashok Singh arrived at Mulayam’s house for the ceremony. But his wife and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi was absent.From Mulayam’s side, the entire clan was present. But chief minister Akhilesh Yadav couldn’t attend the function as he was in Delhi for the meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The engagement will take place in Delhi on December 16.Last week both Lalu and Mulayam facing threat to their political survival in the wake of BJP blitzkreig, joined hands under the umbrella of the Samajwadi Janata Party, a loose conglomeration of half a dozen parties and vowed to fight against the communal forces.Lalu’s outfit faced a severe drubbing in the LS polls in Bihar and later joined hands with Nitish Kuma’s Janta Dal (U). Rabri and his daughter Misa both lost elections.Before the ceremony, the hosts made elaborate arrangements in Lucknow to welcome the girls’ side. Shivpal Yadav, senior minister and a younger brother of Mulayam, waited for the special chartered flight to touch down at Amausi airport and drove the family down to the house .A large number of media people were present outside the house but they were denied access to the function. Both Lalu and Shivpal spoke to the waiting media at the airport reiterating their resolve to fight against the BJP together in future.