Aditi Phadnis: High noon for Laloo

Will the RJD chief survive a date with anti-incumbency this season?

Last week Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee had a meeting with Laloo Yadav, after the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and former Bihar chief minister had concluded alliances with political partners in Bihar, including his once bitter foe, Ramvilas Paswan, the Congress and the Left Front.

Mukherjee told Laloo in no uncertain terms that he was on the verge of losing Bihar, no matter what his claims. He advised him to get his act together and activate the party machinery, otherwise Bihar alone could cost the secular democratic alliance dear. "There is deep hostility to the RJD because of anti-incumbency. The sooner you realise this, the better", Mukherjee said.

Laloo, rather uncharacteristically, listened quietly. It is clear that not just the Congress, but he himself realises that the so-called 'secular' alliance in Bihar is in deep trouble.

There is evidence to support this. Once the master of all he surveyed, Laloo today has been reduced to leaving as many as eight Lok Sabha seats out of 40 to arch foe and rival Ramvilas Paswan whose party, the LokJanaShakti, entered into a deal with the RJD. Laloo had to pay twice over for this alliance.

Not only did he give away eight seats, he also suffered a setback with four ministers resigning from the RJD in protest against the alliance (he himself is not shedding too many tears at their departure).

Ramvilas Paswan is expected to win only his seat, Hajipur. It was Paswan who demanded eight seats and got virtually what he wanted. That Laloo should have swallowed his pride to seek out as a political friend, a man whom he blamed in 1997, for being responsible for his fodder scam troubles, shows how worried he is.

Yadav has given six seats to the secular allies, the Congress and the Left Front. In the old days he would not have conceded a single seat, but once again he has had to bow at the altar of ground reality. If the Congress-led alliance happened to come to power, his troubles would be over. And no man ""especially someone with troubles like he has "" can afford to be an island.

This might be the reason for the kind of reception he was accorded when he accompanied local don Shahabuddin to Siwan where the latter was filing his nomination. If Laloo was upset, he tried not to show it. All over Siwan, posters emblazoned with pictures of Shahabuddin abounded.

There wasn't a single photograph of Laloo "" not one acknowledging the mentoring, guidance and protection that he has provided Shahabuddin all these years. Slogans were raised in praise of Shahabuddin's sense of 'justice' and 'bounty'. No one raised a slogan in praise of Laloo. But he knew he needed to be there. Without Shahabuddin's muscle, Laloo's brother in law Sadhu Yadav cannot win from neighbouring Gopalganj. In these times of fear and apprehension, every seat counts.

A lot has changed in Bihar over the last 14 years, when Yadav first took over as chief minister. If the state has seen the emergence of Laloo, it has also seen his decline. Never was this as evident as it is today. Laloo panicky and grovelling ? This is as close to it as it will ever be.

Ever the master of political signalling, in the course of Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani's Bharat Uday Yatra, Laloo sent the district magistrate to publicly uphold the law and end Advani's meeting at 10.00 pm to uphold the Election Commission's directive. This was a way of telling all Bihar that in the state, it was he who was the master. But all these are also signs of worry and fear.

Where Laloo Yadav and Bihar is concerned it is impossible to overstate the obvious. In his regime, there may have been no development and deindustrialisation in the state, but the sense of assertion of the lower classes can't be denied. In response, other castes have formed political coalitions "" like the Kurmis, Kayasths and Brahmins.

Another hugely important political phenomenon (that has now crossed the frontiers of Bihar) is the consolidation of the Other Backward Classes "" Yadavs, for instance. These castes have emerged as a group, crossing the barrier of mere caste. Karpoori Thakur left the project to transform the feudal face of Bihar, incomplete. Laloo is in the process of completing it.

Where are these changes going to lead Bihar generally and Laloo Yadav specifically? The backbone of Yadav's caste mobilisation continues to be the OBC "" 11 per cent of the population who are Yadavs. Add to this Bihar's sizeable Muslim population and you have the enduring MY factor which has been Laloo's winning formula all these years. After the Gujarat riots, the murder of Graham Staines and the proposed bill to ban conversions, the Muslims find Laloo a better bet than George Fernandes or Nitish Kumar.

But despite this, things are changing in Bihar. There is a limit to how much you can run a government on purely populist slogans. As Biharis go out of the state to work and remit money home, poverty is still widespread, but in some pockets, conditions are not as desperate as they used to be. A mass movement to overthrow Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi is taking time coming. But as people begin to have money but nothing to spend it on, they will become more demanding.

What are the sources of opposition to Laloo? The usual parliamentary sources "" the Janata Dal U-Samata Party and BJP which, as if by rote, demand that the central government dismiss the Rabri Devi government on the grounds that it has created a serious law and order problem in Bihar.

But the most significant threat to Laloo Yadav currently is the Lok Sabha election. If the BJP-JD U alliance continues to hold as many seats in divided Bihar (30 out of 40) as it did in united Bihar (ie Bihar with Jharkhand "" 40 out of 54), maybe the BJP-led NDA government will be emboldened to act more decisively in Bihar. Maybe then, the friendship with the likes of the Shahabuddins and the Pappu Yadavs will pay off for Laloo.