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"Laloobabu ke ee kurasia das baras le na dhakachiyat," (Laloo Prasad Yadav's chair
cannot be snatched away for another 10 years), shouts Sona Devi of Biddhupur
village outside the Bihar Chief Minister's Anne Marga residence in Patna.
The 80-year-old woman from the ,Sonar caste (an OBC) gazes at Laloo sitting under
a mango tree on the lawns of his but-house. "Naja bhar dekh lelkai, ab jinagi
sudhar gel," (I have looked at him, now my life is made), she wipes her tears with
a corner of her tattered sari.
Laloo appears overwhelmed. "Not long back, West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu
had said almost the same thing," he reminisces. "But now the CPI(M) is gunning
for me." And then he changes gear, humming a film song: "Dost dost na raha.......
(Friends have ceased to be friends).
The mood changes all of a sudden, and Laloo's shouting brigade is quick to take
the cue. A nervous aggression replaces nostalgic references to Laloo's lost
paradise. Be it Janata Dal's Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel, Andhra Pradesh
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu of the friendly Telugu Desam Party or CPI(M)
leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, all Laloo's detractors within the United Front are
damned as "fifth columnists".
No holds are barred. "Patel has brought disrepute to the party by bringing into
the open his fondness for wine and women. An immoral man has no right to demand
Laloo's resignation on the grounds of morality," thunders Vijay Krishna, MLA and
Janata Dal's Bihar spokesman.
The likes of Naidu and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah are told
to mind their own business. "Laloo was not made Bihar Chief Minister by the Telugu
Desam Party or National Conference legislators. If they are interested in the
health of the United Front Government, they should keep their traps shut," warns
another Bihar Janata Dal MLA, Vikram Kumar.
CPI(M) Secretary General Surjeet's insistence on a corrupt Laloo's ouster provokes
retribution. The CBI should probe Surjeet's assets, demands Bihar Janata Dal
General Secretary Numetullah.
Alleging that the Marxist Chan-akya's sons have amassed huge wealth through the
import export business since the United Front Government came to power at the
Centre, Numetullah asserts: "The Leftists are opportunists. In Bihar, they dare
not face the people without Laloo Yadav!"
And therein lies the rub. Much as Laloo's detractors within the Janata Dal or
other United Front constituents wish to distance themselves from the Bihar Chief
Minister, they are unable to find an alternative leader who can lead the Third
Force in Bihar against the BJP-Samata Party challenge.
Realising their dilemma, Laloo is prepared to call their bluff. He is soft on
potential dissidents within the Bihar Janata Dal because he doesn't want them to
be lured by a small bunch of anti-Laloo Janata Dal men tagging themselves to the
tail of Bihar's self-proclaimed Dalit leader and Union Railway Minister Ram Vilas
Paswan. He is soft on Congress President Sitaram Kesri because he thinks of him as
a potential future ally.
But he is not prepared to give an inch to those he thinks have stabbed him in the
back, either by relinquishing Bihar's chief-ministership or by giving up his claim
to Janata Dal's national presidentship for another term. At least 125 of the 165
Janata Dal in Bihar, the bulk of the MLCs and 23 MPs from the State in the Rajya
Sabha and Lok Sabha, are solidly behind Laloo.
Bihar's Rural Development Minister Ramai Ram did harbour the hope of replacing
Laloo as the next Bihar Chief Minister at one stage. But he failed to secure the
attendance of more than two dozen legislators at the three meetings of dissidents
he organised. "Two dozen others have promised to come and the rest will follow
when the charge-sheet is filed," was the only thing Pashupati Nath Paras, Bihar
Minister and Union Minister Paswan's brother, who is marshalling forces for Ramai
Ram in Bihar keeps saying.
A visit to Bihar's villages reveals that Laloo's grip over the State's illiterate
poor has not been totally wiped out.
The Kurmis and Koeries in Central Bihar had moved away from Laloo in the last
State Assembly elections itself when Nitish Kumar and company broke away from the
Janata Dal. But the Yadavs in North and Central Bihar are his militant supporters.
The bulk of his Muslim support base is also intact despite indications that in
some parts, Muslims may drift away from it. Former Union minister M. Taslimuddin's
outburst in Kishanganj that "even though he did not back me when I was being
charged, we can not ditch him now," explains their viewpoint.
Harijans in Eastern Bihar are showing some inclination to go the CPI(ML) way and m
parts of the Central Bihar districts of Bhojpur, Jehanabad and Gaya, Laloo's
support base in the rock-bottom caste groups is subject to violent and virulent
invasions from the CPI(MIL) and other extremist organisations like the Marxist
Coordination Committee, but in large parts of North Bihar, they have no option but
to support Laloo at present.
Laloo is conscious of his hold when he boasts that "my poor and illiterate
supporters in Bihar are not carried away by the propaganda against me carried on
by the CBI-led conspirators". '
Face to face with the grim realisation that a Janata Dal sans Laloo is not a
viable proposition in Bihar, the leaders of the Third Force in New Delhi are
groping in the dark to first make a dogged Laloo give in and then find a
replacement for boil "preferably with his consent". Their only hope is that Laloo
will agree to hand over the reigns of power in Bihar to a trusted colleague like
Union Minister Kanti Singh.
Ironically, Laloo's continuance in office suits his principal antagonists in
Bihar, the BJP-Samata Party combine. As a BJP leader puts it: "For us, fighting a
Janata Dal minus Laloo Yadav might amount to shooting arrows in the dark!"
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