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How Laloo changed politicians' hues

The resignation of Bihar minister of state for higher education Ram Das Rai has exposed how political expediency has compelled various politicians to fall behind Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Rai was a hardcore Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man till he joined Laloo's party on October 31, 1994. In contrast, Ram Lakhan Ram Raman, whose posting as cabinet minister he strongly objected to, was till a couple of years back in the Communist Party of India.

Rai told newsmen that he was quitting as Raman was junior. Though it is difficult to say who is junior in politics, as far as loyalty to Laloo is concerned, Rai is four years senior.

Besides, Rai, even during his RSS days, had a good relationship with Laloo. He claims that when Laloo was a Janata Party parliamentarian from Chapra, from 1977 to 1980, he used to put up at his place.

The case of Rai and Raman confirm the mastery of Laloo in managing contradictions and taking politicians from diametrically opposite ideologies along with him.

Many ministers in his wife Rabri Devi's cabinet have no socialist backgrounds or had anything to do with Third Front politics. In fact, some opposed it.

Stalwarts like Finance Minister Shanker Prasad Tekriwal and Law and Energy Minister Shakeel Ahmed Khan also come from different backgrounds. While Tekriwal, a Marwari, spent most part of his early life in the RSS, Shakeel Khan was a leading light of the Bihar CPI.

Khan fought the assembly elections from Gaya on a CPI ticket, in 1980, 1985 and 1990.

He was opposed to Laloo even during the heydays of the Babri Masjid in 1992. It was the decimation of the Communist Party of India that forced him to quit in 1994. Being a vocal politician and a leading high court lawyer, Laloo soon made him a legislator of the then Janata Dal.

Last year, in March, he was given an assembly ticket and made minister. First, he got the law portfolio and during the recent reshuffle, Rabri gave him additional charge of energy as he was associated with the trade union movement of the electricity board.

The Mandal-Masjid politics saw polarisation of leaders on caste/community lines, with hardcore communist and communalists hailing from backward castes throwing their lot behind Laloo.

He split the impregnable Bharatiya Janata Party in November 1990 and engineered a similar division in the CPI-ML. Three of its MLAs later joined his party.

The case of Madhu Singh, who is land revenue minister in the Marandi Cabinet in Jharkhand, is also unique.

A man who started his innings as All India Students' Federation (students' wing of the CPI) activist in 1962, he switched over to the CPI-M and then to the Naxalite outfit Party Unity, now known as Peoples War Group.

In 1988, his house in Palamu was attached by the police for being a Naxalite. In the shoot-out which followed two persons lost their lives. This included his nephew, Dr Virendra and his brother.

He won the assembly elections from jail as an Independent. But the advent of Laloo brought him closer and he later joined the Janata Dal.

However, he later joined the Samata Party. He fought the last February elections on a party ticket from Panki in Palamu district. Ironically, once a hardcore Naxalite, he is today a minister under Babu Lal Marandi, himself a hardcore RSS man.

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