to improve the aviation sector of India and was once quoted saying "In this country where crores of people have no other mode of transport but walking, concern for aviation is very elitist." His portfolio was changed from Aviation to the Ministry of Labour and Employment in the September 2001 cabinet reshuffle. In the July 2002 cabinet reshuffle, he was shifted to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. In the 2004 general election, he contested the Madhepura seat in Bihar against Lalu Prasad. Lalu contested this election from two seats, Madhepura and Chhapra, and won both. Lalu Prasad later gave up the Madhepura seat and the ensuing bypoll to fill the vacancy was won by RJD's Pappu Yadav. In the 2009 general election, Sharad Yadav won the Madhepura seat by a comfortable margin of 175,000 votes against RJD's Ravindra Charan Yadav. He failed to retain the seat in the 2014 general election and lost to RJD's Pappu Yadav. Having been removed from JDU in 2017 due to anti-party activities, he contested in the 2019 general election from Madhepura with RJD ticket. He lost to JDU's Dinesh Yadav. Sharad Yadav won the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat a total of four times; in 1991, 1996, 1999 and 2009. However he was also defeated just as many times from there - twice by Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1998 and 2004, by Pappu Yadav in 2014, and by Dinesh Yadav in 2019. In 2017, he gave a speech comparing votes to daughter's honour and suggesting to prefer the former. He was one of the accused in the hawala scandal; however, the charges were dismissed by the Supreme Court of India. Loktantrik Janata Dal Yadav founded the Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) in May 2018, after disassociating himself from the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) in the wake of its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar. A merger with Bahujan Mukti Party (founded on 6 December 2012) was proposed but was called off. Personal life He married Rekha on 15 February 1989, with whom he has a son and a daughter. His daughter Subhashini Raja Rao joined Indian National Congress just before 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly election and announced her plans to contest from Bihariganj seat. She contested the seat as a candidate of RJD and lost. Sharad Yadav's son Shantanu Bundela is a post graduate from University of London. Yadav