Playing Lord Of The Jungle

Is it comeuppance time for the great Yadav chieftain? A week before the assembly elections, Laloo Prasad Yadav is in a state of siege. Gone are the snappy one-liners. The media, once a favoured lot, is now barred from chief minister Rabri Devi’s residence. A TV camera team was thrown out of his 10, Anne Marg residence with Laloo yelling at them that "he did not need the media to form a government" in Bihar. News photographers, who until yesterday were given pride of place, are shooed away the moment they show their faces. Ticket-seekers and party workers too face the wrath as far from giving them a patient hearing, Laloo has been summarily, and without much ceremony, shouting them out of his house. Much is being read into his contesting from two constituencies, Madhepura and Danapur, as opposed to one.

In short, there are increasing signs of desperation. Being cleaned up in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections was bad enough. Losing four parliamentary constituencies in a postponed poll suggested the pattern of things to come. But the political master that he is, Laloo now realises that the assembly elections is the real litmus test. A loss here would unleash the wolves on him. The NDA constituents put together a late and somewhat hasty unity act, but the acrimony that marked the process only indicates that they smell blood.

It’s not only for the squabbling NDA members that ticket distribution has been a problem. Some seven members of the Rabri cabinet have quit on the grounds that they have been unfairly left out. Senior members of his party are openly airing their views on the outcome of the elections and even his closest aides privately say that the tally of 155 seats Laloo won in the 1995 assembly elections is going to be whittled down quite drastically. "We will be lucky to get into triple figures," says an aide, hastily adding for the record that of course, they will form the next government.

There are other indicators as well. In Bihar, since 1977, the party that has won in the Lok Sabha polls has invariably emerged the winner in the assembly. The caste combinations, such as it exists, suit the NDA combine. With the upper castes behind the BJP, significant segments of the backwards with Nitish Kumar and the Dalits with Ram Vilas Paswan, the case against Laloo seems watertight.

The key question is whether the formidable Yadav-Muslim combine which has helped Laloo better his opponents in the past will stay with him. Says Jalaluddin Iqbal Ansari, who quit as minority welfare minister last week after being denied a ticket: "I am still with Laloo. But it must be said that the message has not gone down well with the minority community. There is a good chance this time of a shift towards the Congress, which has put up more Muslim candidates than the RJD." While it is generally agreed that the politically powerful Yadavs are solidly behind Laloo, the BJP, in an effort to counter that, has also put up a number of Yadav candidates, including from Danapur, one of the constituencies where Laloo is contesting. Asks civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav: "If all the Yadavs are with the RJD, what happened at Madhepura?"

Laloo’s problems may have been compounded by a series of lopsided alliances, something that never happened in the past. Of significance here is the role of some of Laloo’s key allies, notably the CPI. Laloo’s access with Delhi-based leaders like A.B. Bardhan has left the state leaders out in the cold, annoying them to the extent that they are unwilling to tie up with the RJD on the ‘secular’ platform. In the past, CPI cadres have always come handy with their 24. 65 vote percentage and 26 assembly seats (1995 polls), particularly in central Bihar. Instead, the RJD chieftain had in a series of well-publicised announcements tied up with Harkishen Singh Surjeet, CPI(m) veteran whose party has little or no hold in the state.

In south Bihar, an alliance with the JMM would have proved a good counterweight to the BJP, but that does not seem to have worked out either. Admits leader of the Opposition Sushil Modi of the BJP: "I would have been apprehensive of an RJD-JMM combine. But it did not happen." Also, there is the spectacle of former ally Mulayam Singh Yadav putting up his own candidates: two former RJD ministers denied tickets have joined the Samajwadi Party. While the chances of the SP winning seats is not that bright, the potential to cut into Laloo’s votebank remains high in some areas.

All this, of course, doesn’t deter the mighty Laloo. "I have given a stable government for the past decade. The people know that and they are going to vote for me," he says. On charges of leading a ‘jungle raj’, Laloo is quick to say that in this jungle "I am the lion". On his own estimation, he says the RJD and allies are expected to better their previous performances hugely. "Write as much as you like, the end result is going to be the same," he announces loftily.

In reality, perhaps, Laloo’s banking a great deal on the confusion arising out of the NDA patchwork, done in a great hurry and in deference to the fact that if they fought Laloo individually, they’d be sitting ducks. Almost until the last day of nominations, Nitish Kumar was reported to be badly cut up with the BJP move to back Ram Vilas Paswan as the big Bihar Dalit leader. There are also reports that defence minister George Fernandes is not too happy with the BJP leadership. So, at the joint press conference in Patna last week, the leaders made special efforts to play down their differences. One of their weaknesses Laloo hopes to exploit: who’ll be the CM in an NDA alliance?

We have decided that no one is going to be projected as the CM," says Sushil Modi. Adds Paswan, "Where is the question of such debate at this point? In a democracy, issues have to be hammered out. We’ll discuss the topic when the time comes." Nitish Kumar says the chief minister debate is spurious. "All’s well that ends well. We’re all signatories to our poll arrangement. Where are the differences? In a democratic process, it is natural that people discuss issues and arrive at decisions. After all, this is not a one-man party," he says.

Laloo, sensing that he does not have too many friends and in an effort to drive a wedge between the NDA allies, is trying hard to isolate the BJP. "Nitish and Ram Vilas are after all old comrades from the Jayaprakash Narain days. I am calling upon them to join and beat back the communal forces. The BJP will expand its powerbase and then gobble them up," he predicts. Instead, both Paswan and Nitish allege that Laloo is trying to rig the polls. "Declare extra-sensitive areas and deploy more forces," says Paswan with Nitish adding that administrative manipulation was what Laloo is depending on to pull his chestnuts out of fire. As if on cue, last week the home ministry announced the deployment of a record 325 battalions of paramilitary forces for the elections.

Some Laloo aides, however, say that the ticket allocation in parties like the BJP is going to help the RJD. "Fifty per cent of BJP candidates are from the upper castes. That arithmetic itself is dubious," says RJD leader Shivanand Tiwary. While the Congress is the forgotten political force in Bihar, its leaders say people are going to be surprised this time. Emphasises poll convenor Subodh Kant Sahay: "People are tired of the jungle raj (RJD) and the jallads (hangmen, a reference to the NDA). The minorities are coming back to us and that is our first concern. The Congress follows the middle path and the rush for tickets in the party office is to be seen to be believed." The stage is thus set for a tough election campaign and the coming weeks will provide an answer whether the king of Bihar can keep his mansabdari (feifdom) intact.