One-Ring Circus

Qaidi No. 3351, serving time at the Hotwar jail in Ranchi, is no ordinary prisoner. But then, Laloo Prasad Yadav is no ordinary politician either. A long stint in prison after his conviction in multiple fodder scam cases has not prevented him from playing eminence grise in Bihar politics, pulling strings from behind the scenes in his alleged bid to topple the newly-elected Nitish Kumar government.

A day before voting to elect the new assembly Speaker late last month, BJP’s Pirpainti legislator Lalan Paswan received an unusual phone call, allegedly from none other than Laloo. Lalan says he initially thought that the RJD president had called him up to congratulate him on becoming a legislator. But it was not long before he got a different message. “Laloo -ji told me to skip the voting on the pretext of Covid infection to help topple the NDA government,” he says. “At first, I was happy that a big leader had called me up to congratulate me but I was dismayed to learn that he wanted to involve me in a conspiracy to topple the government,” he says. “I am sad that someone known as the champion of social justice made a brazen attempt  to buy a poor and Dalit MLA like me.”

Paswan has since reported against Laloo under the Prevention of Corruption Act with the vigilance department in Patna. “It is a common refrain that Dalit and poor people can be bought. When will this perception change?” he asks.

Curiously, the matter came to the fore when BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, Laloo’s long-time bête noire, tweeted about it, even making public the number used to call Paswan. Sushil claims when he called back, Laloo himself picked up the phone. “I told him not to indulge in any such manoeuvre from jail since he will never be successful,” Sushil tweeted. Chief minister Nitish Kumar, too, hit out at Laloo. “Look at what is happening? Phone calls are being made from jail. But let me make it clear. Not one NDA legislator is going to change sides,” he said.

The RJD has trashed the charges. Laloo’s wife, former chief minister Rabri Devi, says that Laloo has nothing to do with the phone episode at all. “Sushil Modi has nothing else to do. That is why he is spreading canards. Nobody trusts him,” she says. Threatening to sue Sushil for defamation, RJD spokesman Bhai Virendra says that thousands of people mimic Laloo-ji. “What is the proof that he had called the BJP legislator?” he asks.

NDA leaders, however, accused the Hemant Soren government of having given a VIP treatment phone to a prisoner like Laloo despite his conviction in a corruption case. HAM-S president Jitan Ram Manjhi and VIP  chief Mukesh Sahani, too, claimed to have received calls from Laloo after the polls.

Faced with mounting criticism, Laloo has since been shifted back to the paying ward of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Ranchi, from the Kelly’s Bungalow of the RIMS director, where he spent 82 days for treatment of various ailments. Meanwhile, the case appears to have aggravated Laloo’s woes since the next hearing of his bail petition by the Jharkhand high court is scheduled for December 11.

Nonetheless, he may get some solace from the fact that Sushil Modi is set to leave Bihar to pursue national politics in Delhi, if he gets elected to the Rajya Sabha on December 14. From filing a PIL in the fodder scam in 1996 to the latest revelation about the audiotapes, he has been Laloo’s longstanding tormentor-in-chief in Bihar.