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Laloo keeps everyone guessing

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

On March 10, 1990, when Laloo Prasad Yadav started his innings with just 59 MLAs in a House of 324, no one believed that he would continue at the helm of Bihar's affairs for long.

Nearly a decade later, if the present chaos in the opposition camp is any indication, it looks like he is set to take up from where he left off not so very long ago.

The very slogan 'Anti-Laloo forces, unite!' conveys that Yadav is still powerful. A master strategist, he keeps his cards close to his chest. No one can predict his next move. The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief was to release the list of 108 candidates for the first phase of poll on Thursday, but put it off for another 24 hours following the indecisiveness in the National Democratic Alliance camp.

No party leader is sure about his/her candidature. It isn't even certain whether Yadav or his wife will contest. His two brothers-in-law, known for muscle power than political skills, have no intention on entering the fray. They would rather enjoy their tenure as members of legislative council.

Yadav's political baptisation began in 1973-74. As a candidate of the Samajwadi Yuvajan Sabha, he became the president of the Patna University Student's Union. His arch rival today, Sushil Kumar Modi, then of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, was elected the general secretary.

Many scribes attribute Yadav's rise to the late Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan. But it was Shubh Murti, the convenor of the Tarun Shanti Sena, an organsiation floated by Narayan, who was instrumental in making a politician out of him. Murti, old-timers say, had a special talent for roping in people who had no fixed ideology.

In the initial days, it was Nitish Kumar, now agriculture minister at the Centre, who was more active in the SYS than Yadav. "Laloo's style is very popular and can create a following. Besides, he is canny tactician," Kumar reminisces.

Yadav reached New Delhi in 1977, winning the Chapra parliamentary seat by 86 per cent votes. His margin of victory was second only to Telecommunications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who entered the Guinness Book of World Records with an 89.3 per cent victory from Hajipur seat that year.

But Yadav's victory was more significant as he was a first-timer. Paswan was then an MLA. However, the anti-Emergency wave soon subsided, and in the 1980 election Laloo, like so many leaders of the disintegrated Janata Party, bit dust. But Paswan managed to retain his seat.

The defeat saw Yadav confining himself to state politics. He became a Lok Dal MLA. In the 1980s his political graph came down. But after the death of Karpoori Thakur he managed to become the leader of opposition in Bihar assembly.

It was then that Laloo started making a name for what can best be described as 'antics'. Sometimes his behaviour was crudely offensive -- once he even threatened the state chief secretary that he would hang him upside down if he did not follow his (Yadav's) instruction.

When Vishwanath Pratap Singh sewed up the scattered opposition to form Janata Dal, Yadav became one of its leaders. In the 1989 parliamentary election he once again won Chapra, but by only 51.1per cent votes.

Yadav by then had decided that his future lay in state and not national politics. Thus, he contested the chief minister's post in the 1990 February-March assembly poll.

The JD emerged with less than a majority. But some small parties decided to support it from outside and Yadav became the chief minister.

Yadav chose to enter the state assembly by becoming a MLC rather than a MLA. He contested the 1995 assembly election not from one but two seats -- Danapur and Raghopur. He gave up Sonepur, which he used to represent in the 80s for these two yadav strongholds. He fought two seats not because he was unsure of victory but because he feared that the then chief election commissioner T N Seshan would countermand election in his constituency.

Seshan was accused of countermanding the election in Patna constituency, from where former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral was contesting, because he wanted to settle personal scores.

Yadav's grip on Bihar politics started loosening once the animal husbandry scam was unearthed. Everyone deserted him, even his righthand and current Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav.

Yadav bounced back after his release from jail by defeating Sharad Yadav in the March 1998 parliamentary election. By 51,983 votes. But he had to spend another four months in jail. And when the Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal and Samata Party joined hands for the last parliamentary election, the RJD met its Waterloo: Laloo lost by a margin of 32,000 votes to Sharad Yadav.

So will he contest this time around? Yadav chooses to evade that question. "I am thinking of applying for pension and you are asking about my plan to contest assembly election!" he laughs. "The amount would be in lakhs!"

Rumour, meanwhile, has it that he would contest the Yadav-dominated Bakhtiarpur seat.

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