HVK Archives: Defiant Laloo will have to go
Defiant Laloo will have to go - The Free Press Journal
Shyam Khosla
()
7 May 1997
Title : Defiant Laloo will have to go
Author : Shyam Khosla
Publication : The Free Press Journal
Date : May 7, 1997
It is a study in contrast between a virtuous President of an ideology-based party
and a populist chief of a casteist outfit. One the one hand, we have the
inspiring conduct of BJP Chief, Lal Krishan Advani, who lost no time in resigning
his seat in Lok Sabha and resolutely stood by his Bhishma Pratigya not to enter
Parliament till he was honourably cleared by the Court of the false charges in the
Jain Hawala case. On the other side of the spectrum is the Janata Dal President
and Bihar Chief Minister, Laloo Yadav, who says he will not resign even if he is
arrested in the Rs. 950 crore fodder seam. Yadav says he will run his government
from the jail even if he is imprisoned, for it is not for the police or the courts
to decide the future of people's representatives.
The CBI has already filed its progress report in the fodder seam with the Patna
High Court. Yadav is listed at serial number 24 of the 56 persons the agency
wants to prosecute for their alleged roles in the seam. Governor, A. R. Kidwai's
permission to prosecute the Chief Minister is likely to be sought during the week.
Once it is granted, Yadav will be chargesheeted. The CM has indicated that he may
seek anticipatory bail.
Yadav is defiant but he will have to go. He is pulling strings and building up
pressures to escape the law but his nemesis has already caught up with him. He
appears to be determined not to quit till he is thrown out in disgrace like his
predecessor, S. R. Bommai. Yadav had joined hands with Sharad Yadav last year to
case out Bommai from the office of Janata Dal President just because the latter's
name figured in the Jain diaries. He was not chargesheeted then and has not been
charge-sheeted since. Bommai resisted pressures from within his party as he
thought that he was a victim of politicking. Ultimately, he resigned but it was a
graceless exit.
Bihar Chief Minister is talking of a blood bath if he is ousted.. He is on a fight
to the finish course and may split the Janata Dal or launch a regional outfit if
outnumbered by his critics within the party. He is ready for the battle and talks
of another 'Mahabharat'. The epic war, he contends, was fought for just five
villages whereas at stake now is the entire state of Bihar. He is a poor
incarnation of Duryodhana and may meet the same fate. Although a Yadava, he is no
Lord Krishna. At best, he may resemble the Naryanai sena of Lord Krishna which
fought on the side of the Kauravas and perished with them.
Where are the Bhishma Pitamahs and Dronacharyas of the United Front? Why is V. P.
Singh, who rode to fame and power in his fight against corruption in high places,
is silent? Is his commitment to moral values only skin-deep? And what about the
Prime Minister's assurance on the floor of the House that no guilty person would
go unpunished?
Inder Kumar Gujral's silence is understandable. He is torn between keeping his
government running and its credibility. Laloo Yaday can rock the leaking Janata
Dal boat and with it the fragile Gujral Government. Railway Minister Ram Vilas
Paswan and former Prime Minister, H. D. Deve Gowda, are building pressures for the
ouster of Yadav for reasons of their own. Left parties are also in favour of
seeing the back of the Bihar Chief Minister. One can only sympathise with the
plight of hapless Gujral but the Prime Minister cannot afford to forget that he is
responsible to neither the Janata Dal nor the United Front but to Parliament and
the people.
Bihar Janata Dal is perceived to be Yadav's fiefdom but already a revolt against
the tainted Chief Minister is brewing. The number of JD MLAs demanding Yadav's
head is growing by the hour. No one would be surprised if Yadav loses the support
of a majority in the legislative party after he is actually charge-sheeted. Under
the circumstances, it is not surprising that the Chief Minister is looking for an
escape route. He is believed to have put certain conditions for his resignation
from the Government. One of these conditions is that he should be allowed to
continue as Janata Dal Chief. This is not acceptable to his bete noir, Deve
Gowda, who is aspiring to be the next president of the party.
Finding himself cornered, Yadav thought of a clever plan to muster support for his
immoral and illegal stand to hang on to power. He is now talking about a BJP-CBI
conspiracy to oust him. After all, it, was the BJP and its ally Samata Party
which have been in the forefront of the "oust Laloo" campaign. How come, the CBI
is suddenly active and vigorously persuing cases against the "poor man". Atal
Behari Vajpayee's letter mentioned the serial number of the accused. Who else, but
CBI gave him this information? Basing his arguments on these flimsy grounds,
Yaday is thundering that he will expose the conspiracy hatched by the BJP to frame
him with the help of CBI officials who are RSS men.
Left parties can be depended upon for not missing any opportunity, howsoever fake,
to criticise BJP - the untouchable among political parties. CPM leader, Somnath
Chatterjee raised the issue in Lok Sabha casting aspersions on the neutrality of
CBI. He wanted to know the source of Vajpayee's information. The former Prime
Minister has rightly dismissed these charges as "ridiculous". To say that the
former Prime Minister was playing the game of the CBI is a measure of desperation
of these parties. What is pertinent is not who passed on the information to
Vajpayee but whether the information is correct. If so, what action the Prime
Minister has taken on the communication from the leader of the Opposition. CPM
leaders did not raise the point that matters but harped on the source of
Vajpayee's information.
The BJP-Samata Party combine has launched a mass movement in Bihar on the fodder
seam demanding stringent action against the guilty, including the Chief Minister.
It is worth recalling that one of the BJP MLAs, Dhruv Bhagat, is also under a
cloud for his role as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The party
promptly suspended him and has made no effort to protect him. It is for Bhagat to
clear his name. It is this stand that has lent credibility to the party's campaign
against corruption. The massive response to BJP-Samata Party' campaign shows that
people of Bihar are fed up with the corrupt and degraged rule of Yadav.
That the Janata Dal under Laloo Yadav was fast losing ground in Bihar was borne
out by last Lok Sabha elections. Recent developments have further eroded Janata
Dal's mass base which is essentially caste-based. The BJP-Samata combine is
waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum created by the erosion of support for the
Janata Dal. Another Janata Dal bastion is about to fall.
No one expected Laloo Yadav to follow the path shown by Advani. His obstinacy and
threats of violence and worse have left the Centre with no alternative but to
dismiss him and impose President's rule in the state. The nation is watching.
Inder Kumar Gujral's credibility is at stake.
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