Sunil Gatade
With the Lok Sabha polls not far away, Bihar is heading for interesting times, politically, following the conviction of Lalu Yadav by a special court in one of the cases relating to the infamous fodder scam.
Lalu, undoubtedly the country’s most colourful politician, is in jail and the politics of Bihar will not be the same again if he fails to keep his flock in the Rashtriya Janata Dal together and his core constituency of Muslims and Yadavs with it in the turbulent times ahead.
Admittedly, both Lalu and RJD were not in the pink of political health since his marginalization in the last Lok Sabha elections in 2009. But even his political detractors concde that Lalu is no pushover.
He had singlehandedly dominated the state’s politics from 1990 to 2005.
But Monday’s conviction by the court changes all that. It is a a fact that RJD has been all about Lalu. His conviction means him getting unseated from Lok Sabha. His ability to fight an election will be affected.
Observers of the political scene are unanimous in saying that the conviction was definitely a huge blow for him and it could be even a bigger blow for his party which is now leaderless.
Lalu Prasad had put Rabri Devi in power in his place when he was imprisoned in this case a few years ago. Those times were different. He was in power in the state and could pull strings and run the government from jail without caring for his critics.
Lalu Prasad first came to power in 1990 as chief minister of Bihar, the state with a reputation for being poorly administered and endemically problemridden despite being blessed with fertile soil and plenty of river water. He belongs to the first generation of Indian politicians with no experience of colonial rule, being born in 1948, a year after the British left India. Incidently, his rise coincided with the decline of Congress in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. His caste-laced politics came to be recognised as social engineering.
But now times have changed. He is neither in power in Bihar nor a partner in the UPA at the Centre and is just an insignificant outside supporter who is hardly wanted by the Congress. Besides, the talk is that while the punishement has not been announced, it looks that he is going to be in jail for 3-7 years.
This could throw his party into a serious crisis of leadership at a time when the BJP and Nitish Kumar are trying to maximize their influence in Bihar and Congress, which has been in political wilderness in the state for nearly 25 long years, trying to make inroads through permutations and combinations.
Rahul Gandhi’s denunciation of the ordinance to save disqualification of convicted lawmakers and the subsequent developments showed that the new leader of Congress does not like Lalu Prasad and wants to bring in Bihar Chief Minister and JDU leader Nitish Kumar in his place.
In fact, Lalu Prasad and Rahul never got along well since the Cong Vice President entered politics some ten years back and he never liked the politics played by the RJD supreme. Rahul’s rise in Congress is not a good news for Lalu Prasad who counted Sonia Gandhi as her ardent backer as the Congress president had remained with him through thick and thin. But that was till 2009. .
Earlier, when Sonia Gandhi came under attack on the issue of her foreign origin after taking to politics, Lalu Prasad was among her greatest supporters. His RJD became a key member of the Congress-led UPA alliance in 2004. Lalu Prasad was named the high profile railway minister.
Lalu Prasad himself spoiled his case in the last Lok Sabha elections by throwing out Congress from the RJD-LJP alliance in Bihar, apparently after prompting of the Left parties which had promised him the Prime Ministership of a Third Front Government. It was all illusory but the damage was done.
Now with Lalu Prasad behind bars, his friendturned- foe Nitish Kumar will use every trick in the book to weaken the RJD. IInterestingly, under VP Singh’s leadership, Lalu and Nitish led the forces of social justice and aggressively countered the communal forces. After being sidelined by Lalu, Nitish had no option but to join hands with BJP along with George Fernandes.
JD-U strategists believe that a section of Muslims and other secular sections will move towards the JD(U) after the recent developments, but Yadavs will not come to the JD(U).
In order to break the hold of Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar has started the process of weaning away Ram Vilas Paswan to his side. Nitish understands well that a three-way fight in Bihar, between him, RJD and BJP will be problematic for him as it will divide the secular vote and would be like playing into the hands of the BJP.
The political outcome in Bihar would now depend on which side Nitish would go, whether he would ally with the Congress, or moved towards a non-Congress, non-BJP coalition. It is also dependent on how Lalu Prasad’s party is steered in his absence. In RJD, the son has risen.
Tejasvi, Lalu Prasad’s son is now heir apparent in the party, the person who will take the party forward. But Tejasvi is a greenhorn and his mother Rabri Devi too had done politics so far only under the shadow of her husband.
Testing times are ahead for Lalu Prasad’s successsors as the BJP has also been eyeing the Yadav base and the party in Bihar also has a backward face in Sushil Modi. Narendra Modi, the BJP’s PM candidate, has also have stakes high in Bihar and he will move heaven and earth for a good show there to spite Nitish.
In such a situation, RJD could find itself in a whirlpool unless steered ably and gave due respect to the old guard. “Jabtak rahega samose mein aloo, raj karega Lalu”, has already become a old hat and given way to the plank of good governance.
The most colourful politician is now certainly off colour. But he cannot not be written off even though he is behind bars if he played his cards right.
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