Commentary/T V R Shenoy

India should thank Laloo Prasad Yadav for exposing the United Front once and for all

TThe largest party in the Lok Sabha doesn't have a seat in the Union Cabinet. The second-largest party in the Lok Sabha doesn't have a seat in the Union Cabinet. The third-largest party in the Lok Sabha doesn't have a seat in the Union Cabinet. Is this the 'democracy' we are asked to celebrate in the Golden Jubilee of independence?

India should thank Laloo Prasad Yadav for exposing the United Front once and for all. By splitting the Janata Dal, he has raised uncomfortable questions which the United Front must answer.

Once upon a time, the massed ranks of the United Front howled about a "mandate" in the Lok Sabha. We all saw them doing so in the famous televised debates. Which do you think is more torn and tattered today -- that stupid excuse or the Janata Dal?

The Janata Dal was far from being the largest party in the Lok Sabha. Now that Laloo Prasad Yadav has danced away with 18 MPs, the Janata Dal can't even claim that it is the largest party in the United Front. That honour goes to the CPI-M!

How about the prime minister who is dreaming of ascending the Red Fort to unfurl the tricolour on this historic August? He was born in Punjab and has spent most of his adult life in Delhi. But he swears that he is "normally resident" in Patna, and gets Rajya Sabha membership on the strength of that fib.

Under the circumstances is it surpassing that Inder Kumar Gujral is so quiet when it comes to criticising Laloo Prasad Yadav? He can't afford to do so -- in a few years he will need to grovel before Yadav once more. (With the Janata Dal crashing in Orissa and in difficulties in Karnataka, where else can he go?)

I remember those stories about how Gujral would sacrifice his office rather than compromise on principle. I stopped believing in fairy tales a very long time ago. Today those stories ring even more hollow than ever. But it isn't just the prime minister who has been exposed. His shame is shared by his United Front partners.

The United Front doesn't want to lose the MPs who have joined hands with the rebellious chief minister. Nor do they want to lose the largest state ruled by the United Front. But this pack of hypocrites doesn't want to be seen in public alongside the tainted Laloo Prasad Yadav. How do they square the circle?

The United Front has reacted by pretending the problem doesn't exist. The Steering Committee was supposed to meet on July 8. That was cancelled, on the excuse that the split was an internal affair of the Janata Dal!

This, I assume, means that Laloo Prasad Yadav is correct when he insists that he and his followers are still members of the United Front. So much for the Left Front's well-publicised campaign against corruption -- if the Communists were serious, they should insist on kicking out everyone concerned in the fodder scam.

There is another reason, an unstated one, for the Communist silence. If they push Laloo Prasad Yadav beyond a point, he is perfectly capable of destroying the Left Front in Bihar. Whatever the leaders in Delhi may claim there are several comrades on the ground who can be lured away by the wily chief minister.

That may not affect the CPI-M too much. But the CPI still has pockets of influence in the State. Is that, perhaps, why Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta (a CPI man to the bone) is keeping unnaturally quiet?

(Do you think that a split in the Communist ranks is impossible? If so, take a look at Uttar Pradesh. Malaya Singh Yadav arranged for just that. It is interesting to note that in the great battle against 'communalism,' the two Yadavs's main aim is to demolish their 'secular' allies!)

If Laloo Prasad Yadav has stripped the prime minister and the United Front of their pretensions, why should he spare the Congress? The Bihar chief minister is putting it very brutally: 'Choose between me and the BJP, because we are the only forces that matter in Bihar.'

The Congress is prudently silent. (Its president, like Gujral, needs Laloo Prasad Yadav if he is ever to make it to the Lok Sabha.) But behind closed doors, the message has been sent out to Congressmen in Bihar that Yadav must not be disturbed. This means that his chances of surviving a vote of confidence are substantially better.

When, pray, did the question of a vote in the assembly arise? Morality demands that a Chief Minister quit the moment that serious charges are filed against him. If he doesn't go voluntarily, he should be booted out, the sooner the better.

But Laloo Prasad Yadav, with the tacit consent of all those great moralists in the United Front and the Congress, has made 'morality' the servant of 'majority'.

Laloo Prasad Yadav has been indulged to the point where he can defy the investigators, the courts, and even public opinion. That, fellow citizens, is the true face of the great 'secular' alternative.

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