WHY LALU YADAV STILL MATTERS
It was fourth time lucky for Lalu Prasad Yadav. The former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief had been in jail since December 2017 after being convicted in various fodder scam cases. He had been refused bail three times earlier, and the unanticipated good fortune of the April 17 bail order by the Jharkhand High Court has injected a sense of optimism among the party cadre and Lalu’s supporters in Bihar.
However, nearly two weeks after the bail order, Lalu hasn’t yet made it to his home state, because he is in AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), New Delhi, being treated for various ailments. Besides, his lawyers in Jharkhand have yet to collect
the orders from the court, so he is still technically in judicial custody. The RJD patriarch will be turning 73 this June, and is likely to continue for some time in Delhi, given the pandemic situation. Sources close to the family say Lalu may stay in AIIMS for now till he can shift to his daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti’s house in the capital.
A senior RJD leader, speaking anonymously, admitted that a free Lalu allows a lot more “leeway to the party”. “Lalu can reach out to anyone, cutting across the political divide. Whether it is Jitan Ram Manjhi of HAM (Hindustani Awam Morcha), Mukesh Sahani (Vikassheel Insaan Party), the five legislators of the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM (All India Majlis-eIttehad-ul-Muslimeen) or even Nitish Kumar, nobody is off limits for Lalu Prasad. If Lalu is present and leading from the front, he has much more acceptability than his son Tejashwi can ever hope for,” he says.
The West Bengal election result is out on May 2, and if it goes the BJP’s way, chances are the party will start flexing its muscles in Bihar, where it is the dominant partner in a coalition government led by the JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar. A section of RJD leaders believe Lalu may even reach out to Nitish in such an eventuality. But all this is easier said than done. The biggest handicap for Lalu right now is that the next assembly election is only in 2025. An alternative government is possible only if Nitish breaks up with the BJP and joins hands with Lalu. And even partisan rumour-mongers in Bihar will admit such a possibility looks remote for now.
Besides, even though Lalu is still technically the party chief, son Tejashwi is leading the RJD for all practical purposes. “And this will not change,” says a senior party leader, who did not want to be named. “The pecking order in the RJD has been finalised. Lalu can at most be a margdarshak, albeit with a lot more power than his counterparts in the saffron party. So, since Tejashwi’s leadership is a given, it may limit the chances/ impact of Lalu reaching out, even if he tries to.”
That said, it is to Lalu’s credit that he still remains relevant, ever a polarising figure in the state. Unlike many politicians who vanished into oblivion once convicted, Lalu is still one of Bihar’s most powerful and popular leaders. Nitish may have weaned away the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) and Backward Caste (BC) voters from Lalu’s camp, but his committed Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) vote base is still with him. Their en bloc support is what brought Tejashwi so close to power in the 2020 assembly election.
It is Lalu’s name that gave 30-yearold Tejashwi a cushion of at least 15 per cent votes in the constituencies his party contested. Indeed, there aren’t many parallels among contemporary leaders—Lalu won his first Lok Sabha election way back in 1977. The political space in Bihar has seen tectonic shifts since, but Lalu’s popularity has remained by and large intact. He may have lost elections, but the M-Y base has never deserted him. He was an MP from Saran when he was convicted for the first time in 2013.
A section of RJD leaders privately credit Tejashwi for leading the party from the front since Lalu’s incarceration, but they also admit that the chosen heir has faltered when it comes to stitching an alliance. For instance, Manjhi and Sahani, the two leaders who brought eight MLAs to the NDA’s table after last year’s assembly polls—a fact that proved decisive in the latter forming a government in Bihar—were initially with the RJD-led grand alliance. They switched sides and joined the NDA on the eve of the election, blaming Tejashwi for ignoring them. “It may not have happened if Lalu had been at the helm,” says an RJD leader. “Tejashwi is aggressive, which enthuses and rallies his supporters, but it also makes it difficult to reach out to potential coalition partners.”
The timing of Lalu’s bail is also significant. Given the Covid crisis and his ailments, the ageing RJD chief may be forced to stay indoors rather than reaching out to his people. Lalu had earlier got bail in three cases of the fodder scam—Deogarh, Chaibasa and the Ranchi-Doranda treasury cases—and was awaiting judgment in the Dumka case, where he has got bail now. The Rs 950 crore fodder scam, in which massive payments were released by the state animal husbandry department against fraudulent bills, came to light in 1996, and Lalu was first convicted in October 2013, during Nitish Kumar’s second stint as Bihar chief minister.
BJP Rajya Sabha leader Sushil Modi has dismissed speculation about Lalu’s return having any impact on Bihar’s current politics. He says Lalu getting bail was part of a judicial process, and sees no threat to the NDA government in the state. Modi may have his reasons for underplaying the significance of Lalu’s return, but his impact on state politics cannot be written off just yet.