JOIN USTowards a cleaner polity
More than two decades ago, or, to be precise, in November 1989, all the four protégés of late Jayaprakash Narayan – Sharad Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan – won the Lok Sabha elections from their respective constituencies in Bihar. Except Lalu, the rest were inducted in the V P Singh Government. While Sharad and Paswan got Cabinet berths, Nitish was made Minister of State.
Lalu was not inducted in the ministry because there was an unwritten understanding among all the key players that if the Janata Dal rode to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Bihar, Lalu would be the chief minister.
As expected, the Janata Dal became the largest party in the Assembly in March 1990. Lalu was elected leader of the legislature party. But it took him four days to be sworn in as party leaders Ajit Singh and Chandrashekar tried to prop up their loyalists to the post.
All this drama took place five months before the Mandal Commission was implemented which eventually changed the political course in the cow belt. Amid coaxing, bitter fights and blackmail, Lalu was eventually sworn in as chief minister for the first time, breaking the hegemony of upper castes in Bihar politics.
During his eventful first term, Lalu got BJP leader L K Advani arrested in October 1990 and this led to the fall of VP regime. But, the Advani arrest made Lalu an icon in the eyes of Muslims, who for the next 15 years backed him to the hilt, along with his own fellow castemen - Yadavs. The MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination, which constitutes nearly 30 per cent of the electorate in Bihar, made Lalu’s position unassailable. This was enough for him to romp home with 165 out of 325 seats in the 1995 Assembly elections.
His second term would have been smooth had fodder scam not surfaced in January 1996 as destiny and CBI made his life difficult. In July 1997, he had to quit as Chief Minister and was sent to jail in the same RC 20 A/96 case in which he was sentenced to five years in jail on October 3. Though he was released from jail in December 1997, he had to be put behind bars in fodder scam cases four more times. In the meantime, Rabri remained the de jure Chief Minister from 1997 to 2005 with an exception of a brief stint of Nitish as the Chief Minister for seven days in March 2000.
But Nitish decimated Lalu-Rabri raj in November 2005 through a decisive mandate. In between, Lalu remained Railway Minister in UPA-I from 2004 to 2009. An overambitious Lalu did not enter into an alliance with the Congress in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Both were routed. He himself lost from Patliputra seat but retained Saran. With barely four MPs in his kitty, he was rendered rudderless and politically irrelevant for the next few years.
Till Lady luck smiled on him in June 2013, when the RJD defeated the JD (U) in the Maharajganj Lok Sabha by-election in a straight contest by over 1.5 lakh votes. This was the first defeat Nitish tasted ever since he donned the mantle of chief-ministership. The victory margin was the life-saving drug for Lalu, whom many had started writing off.
His incarceration in fodder scam has, however, put the Congress in a dilemma, whether it should align with a more reliable ally like him or have new friends like Nitish. Senior Congress leaders, who have read Nitish and Lalu well, have reportedly appraised the party high command about the pros and cons of aligning with either of the two regional satraps.
In the 2004 polls, when the Congress, RJD and the LJP contested together, the alliance got 29 seats out of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies. But the scene reversed when they contested separately in 2009. Congress bagged only two, while RJD managed to scrape through in four constituencies. The NDA comprising the JD (U) and the BJP won 32 seats.
“Those who think that a jail term for Lalu will diminish the maverick leader are living in a fool’s paradise. His supporters, M-Y, do not treat him corrupt, and will vote for his party more aggressively if he remains behind bars,” explained a former Bihar Congress president. “If the alliance on the pattern of 2004 takes place, chances are the UPA’s splendid performance will be repeated, as Nitish’s magic is on wane,” he said and added that Sonia is in favour of joining hands with Lalu but Rahul wants an alliance with Nitish.
The other camp within the Congress has suggested that the party should join hands with Nitish who, despite his fellow castemen Kurmis constituting a numerically poor three per cent, can take along the three Ms - Muslims, Most Backward class and Mahadalits together, which constitute nearly 45 per cent of the electorate.
But the Congress, sources say, is not in a hurry. It wants to wait till Lalu’s bail petition comes up for hearing on October 17. If the high court stays Lalu’s conviction as well as sentence, the entire political scenario will change fast. Besides, the Congress will wait for court’s November 22 hearing too in which court has asked the CBI to explain why Nitish and JD (U) Rajya Sabha member Shivanand Tiwary (who have been alleged to have availed monetary benefits from scamsters) were not made accused in fodder scam.
Till then, all the poll arithmetic and electoral chemistry will have to wait to fructify.
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