First among equals: Lalu’s longevity in Bihar politics

The career of Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo, Lalu Prasad Yadav, has been marked by unparalleled longevity and an unending ability to make an impact on Bihar’s political landscape

By Nalin Verma

He was addressing election rallies for the first time in six years. Huge crowds swelled in Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan, waiting to see Lalu Prasad Yadav in action on October 27, three days before the bypolls in the two constituencies. The colossus appeared a shadow of his former self – he had lost weight and was visibly frail. As he stepped up on the dais, however, surrounded by chants of ‘Lalu Yadav Jindabad’ from the heaving crowds, it was like nothing had changed. The RJD went on to lose both bypoll seats, a rude shock to the party supremo, perhaps, but one thing is clear. Lalu’s magical hold over the masses remains very much intact, even 30 years later.

His political detractors, mainly the RSS-BJP, had already declared the end of the Lalu saga. Newspapers had even begun commissioning his obituary. After he was granted bail in the fodder scam conviction two months ago, Yadav went straight to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, spending two months in the home of his daughter, MP Misa Bharati, under the watchful care of his doctors. He has been away from the public eye for even longer, serving a three year prison sentence that was peppered with hospital visits. A diabetic with cardiac troubles, he was rushed, during his sentence, to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi.

“Now it seems that the RJD will win both the seats. It will be hard for the ruling Janata Dal (United)—led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in alliance with the BJP—to retain these seats,” remarked Kanhaiya Bhelari, a senior journalist based in Patna. The premature deaths of the JDU’s incumbent MLAs from Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan necessitated the by-poll. The outcome of the polls will be determined by local issues and caste equations but Lalu’s arrival on the scene brought a rush of enthusiasm into political cadres and supporters alike.

This is not Lalu’s first charismatic re-entry into the limelight after a long spell of isolation. The septuagenarian RJD patriarch has done it several times before. When he was charge-sheeted in the fodder-scam cases, he had to step down from his office as Chief Minister in favour of his wife, Rabri Devi back in 1996. The reins were taken over by the former housewife, one day before her husband went to jail. Even then, it seemed like the Lalu story had come to an inglorious end. But he was released on bail and returned to lead the RJD to a thumping victory in the 2000 Assembly election, with the people’s mandate in favour of Rabri retaining her office as CM. He also struck an alliance with the Congress, playing a crucial role in dislodging the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance from power and paving the way for Manmohan Singh’s United Progressive Alliance in 2004. Yadav went on to become the Union Railway Minister during UPA-1.

The Rabri-Devi led government lost to Nitish Kumar’s JDU-BJP in 2005. Nitish retained power after an emphatic victory in the 2010 elections, reducing Lalu’s RJD to 25 assembly seats in the 243-member Bihar House.  To add to his chagrin, Lalu was convicted in the fodder scam case, lost his membership to the Lok Sabha, was sent to jail and had to forgo the right to contest elections.

The BJP’s victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar only served to convince Lalu’s detractors that his saga had come to an end. However, Lalu returned in 2015 after a long spell of incarceration and wasted no time in forging political ties, leading the RDU-JDU-Congress Grand Alliance, along with his son, Tejashwi Yadav, to a decisive victory against the BJP in 2015. Lalu became Deputy CM in the Nitish-led cabinet.

In 2017, however, Nitish did a volte face and returned to the BJP fold, ditching the Grand Alliance as Lalu was simultaneously convicted in three more fodder scam cases and sent to cool his heels in Ranchi’s Birsa-Munda jail. The Narendra Modi led BJP-JDU alliance contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar in Lalu’s absence and did extremely well. Still serving his presence sentence, Lalu missed the 2020 Assembly elections too. But his son, Tejashwi emerged as his true heir leading his RJD to emerge as the single largest party with 75 MLAs. The JDU-BJP alliance retained power by a whisker.
Though the results of by-elections in the two Assembly seats might not drastically alter the configuration of the Bihar House, Lalu’s arrival on the scene has created a definite flutter in the JDU-BJP camp. The JDU-BJP government in Bihar has 126 MLAs—only four more t