Laloo's last days - The Free Press Journal
Editorial
()
3 May 1997
Title : Laloo's last days
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Free Press Journal
Date : May 3, 1997
In spite of all the obstreperous whistling in the dark by Laloo Prasad Yadav for
courage, he is already a beaten man, thinking in terms of seek sing anticipatory
bail. That nobody is in a mood to offer him a decent way-out in New Delhi except
his resignation has been made again and again clear to him in the last three days.
His conspiracy theory has come unstuck. The Prime Minister has repeated his
commitment to the principle that those w o have been tainted by CBI interrogations
and subsequent charge-sheets will not be permitted to continue in office. But the
most significant development in the wake of the sordid episode of Laloo's
involvement in the fodder scam is the demand by a section of Janata Dal MLAs that
the chief minister should resign in grace, failing which he will be shown the
door. A signature campaign has already begun in Patna and it is said that more
than fifty MLAs are ready to endorse the campaign, although only twenty-five have
signed the protest letter against Yadav. This has rocked the boat more
dangerously for Laloo Yadav than anything else. The campaign is catching on.
Once the governor gives his assent to the CBI. for the prosecution of the chief
minister, many more Janata Dal MLAs will jump off the sinking ship. Even among
the people belonging to Laloo's vote bank (the Muslim-Yadav-Dalit group), the
realisation is slowly but steadily creeping in that their messiah is not a saint
after all and that he has gained hugely from the treasury loot. The forward castes
have never trusted him and their disenchantment is growing by the day.
Even more clinching is the evidence supplied by a minister of Laloo's cabinet
during his interrogation by the CBI. Bhola Ram 'Toofani, a minister in Laloo's
cabinet and one of the accused in the fodder scorn, has deposed to the CBI that
even when he came to know that the deputy director of the animal husbandry
department (S.B. Sinha) was the ring leader of the massive loot from the teasury,
he could not take any action against Sinha because Laloo Yadav was fully
protecting him. Some ministers knew that more than a dozen officials were involved
but the chief minister had stonewalled all efforts to initiate a probe against
anyone of them. And yet Laloo Yadav declares from housetops that he was the one
who unearthed the entire story of defalcation from the treasury and yet the CBI is
trying to charge-she et him. Minister Toofani's indictment of the chief minister
is hard to disprove. This has effectively sealed yet another escape route for
Laloo Yadav.
Street-smart that he is, Laloo Yadav has already set in motion a game plan to take
the fight to the streets. When he invited about 18,000 panchayat mukhyas to Patna
for a conclave to tell them that no one could stand between village mukhyas and
the state mukhya (himself), he made it a point to summon all ministers and senior
bureaucrats to listen to the grievances of the people's representatives. Many more
such conclaves are proposed to be held in the coming weeks. His favourite
brother-in-law, Sadhu Yadav, who functions as a power centre in Patna, browbeating
all ministers and bureaucrats, is already on the job, having let loose a sizeable
number of Janata Dal storm-troopers to capture the Patna airport and the railway
station the moment he heard that CBI is likely to charge-sheet the chief minister.
Thank God, wiser counsels have prevailed with Laloo Yadav and the attack was
called off. However he is egging his supporters on to parade themselves before the
President and the governor. The centre cannot look the other way in the name of
federalism when lawless elements masquerade as a government with the support of a
section of illiterate rustics.
