At a recent anti-liquor meet at Vaishali in Bihar, attendees were greeted by a poster depicting the battle of Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata, albeit with a slight change: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as Arjun and former Janata Dal-United (JD-U) president Sharad Yadav as Krishna, charioteer to Arjun in the war.
Looking at the poster, a senior JD-U leader chuckled: "With Sharad as charioteer, Nitish is likely to miss the aim. His chariot wheel might also get trapped in the mud, like that of Karna." Others said it might not be a good idea for Yadav to be depicted as Krishna.
In the 1990s, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad used to be depicted as Krishna in posters; then, his career went downhill as he got embroiled in the fodder scam.
