A sin called hubris

Neglect, arrogance and nepotism — the three main causes of Lalu Prasad Yadav's coming apart in Bihar

Ranjit Bhushan Delhi

February 27 was a shocker of a Sunday. Not because the Congress swept Haryana, and the Jharkhand Assembly election results hung in the balance, but because the might of Lalu Prasad Yadav was humbled at the hustings in Bihar. In a reversal of fortune for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which had held the state in thrall for 15 long years, the party has won 83 seats in a 243-seat House, pathetic by earlier standards. A formidable Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) combine that Lalu had nurtured for over a decade deserted him at the critical moment. In the end, it needed a demure intervention by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to sort out the slugfest between her two principal allies in Bihar, Lalu and his bete noire, the Lok Janshakti Party's (LJP) Ram Vilas Paswan.

The two main beneficiaries of the division of votes included Paswan and the more or less comatose National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is in Bihar a medley of former socialists and urban Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. In the event of an emerging deadlock, political parties favoured the imposition of President's Rule. Once more, the Constitution may have to intervene to set up a state government.

In a badly hung House in which 122 seats are required to form the government, it isn't clear whether even Central intervention can suffice. So, while Paswan is waxing eloquent about not helping either the BJP or the RJD, he is under considerable pressure from his newly-elected 30 LJP legislators to form a government with the help of the Janata Dal (United) and the outside support of the BJP. He is being hailed as "kingmaker", and no kingmaker's troubles have ever been ordinary. Given his ideology and mandate, even seeking the outside help of the BJP is a questionable tactic. Nonetheless, Paswan cannot afford to ignore upper-caste sentiments: about 16 of his 30 winning legislators are Rajputs and Bhumihars, who have no problem at all with taking BJP support.

"The vote is against Lalu, and all those who have got votes in the name of finishing goonda raj have a commitment to the people," JD (U) leader Nitish Kumar said in an obvious attempt to woo Paswan, an estranged erstwhile ally. Paswan is playing hard to get to the hilt. "I am neither going to support the RJD nor the NDA. I said that earlier and I am saying it now," Paswan asserted at a press briefing in Patna. The next day, at a meeting with Sonia Gandhi in Delhi, he iterated his stand.

The story of the recent Bihar elections is that of the collapse of Lalu's thundering caste alliance, one of the strongest in modern Indian history. For about 15 years, the two powerful combinations, the Yadavs and the Muslims, along with other influential segments of society, backed the RJD leader to the hilt. But, as development increasingly took a backseat and with stories of personal arrogance abounding, Lalu inched away from his constituency. Even though his secular credentials remain intact, they may not have been enough, as he is now painfully learning.

Right through Lalu's rabblerousing tenure, Bihar has bombed over and over again. In the absence of virtually any electricity generation, most handloom and weaving industries have perished. A vast number of Muslim workers who earn their livelihood through these traditional handicrafts have suffered. Paswan has capitalised well on this insecurity and emerged as a crucial challenger to Lalu's vote-bank politics. Ali Anwar, president of the Bihar Muslim Pasmanda Samaj (Backward Muslims Association), said, "The Bihar results are not surprising. Muslims have been given security in Lalu's raj, but is that enough to eke out a livelihood? Several promises made by the RJD government in the last two terms have not even been met."

Lalu's main backers, the politically powerful Yadavs, deserted him en masse. Says political analyst Rachna Prasad, "The writing was on the wall. Both Lalu's rise and his high profile fuelled ambitions among other Yadavs. This time, when they approached him for party tickets, he could obviously not please them all. And, as can happen at the end of a decade-and-a-half long rule, many of them vowed to fight the RJD when they went back home dissatisfied." According to Prasad's estimate, a good 40-45 per cent of Independents who won this time are rebel RJD candidates, and they are in no mood to oblige Lalu. The results back her analysis: from a whopping 165 seats in 1995, Lalu's party had slipped to about 110 in the 2000 Assembly elections and to much less than 100 in 2005.

The scramble for tickets within Lalu's extended clan itself was indicative of this Yadav clawing for pre-eminence. Indira Yadav, wife of Lalu's powerful jailbird brother-in-law, Sadhu Yadav, lost from Gopalganj contesting as an Independent candidate after she was denied the official RJD party ticket. Lalu's brother, Prabhunath Yadav, contesting as an Independent, also lost from Gopalganj. Another of Lalu's relatives, Kaushal Yadav, was denied the RJD ticket: he contested against his mother, RJD candidate Gayatri Devi, in Nawada district and won by a whopping 64,000 votes. Poornima Yadav, wife of Kaushal Yadav, contested as an Independent against the official RJD candidate, Krishna Ballabh Yadav, and whipped him.

Stories are legion in Patna of the highhandedness and dadagiri of Lalu's brothers-in-law, Subhash and Sadhu. RJD leaders now admit that far too many tickets were allotted to cronies, hangers-on and assorted buddies in place of deserving political candidates. "We have to admit that there have been problems in ticket distribution. Some people who did not deserve tickets managed to get them. That has damaged us," admits a key Lalu aide, Ramkripal Yadav, RJD Member of Parliament from Patna.

While political parties are often faced with erosion in their vote-banks, the recent RJD slide is particularly spectacular. According to Election Commission figures, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections the RJD had won the equivalent of 115 Assembly seats with a 32.97 per cent vote. In the latest polls, it lost 41 of those Assembly segments and got only 21.48 per cent votes, a negative swing of more than 11 per cent. Paswan's 10.48 per cent votes deeply dented the RJD. The BJP, on its part, gained two more seats than its 2000 tally of 36, buts its vote-share has come down. The real gainer has been the JD (U), which, while adding 37 more seats to its 2000 tally, raised its vote-share from 7.68 per cent to 12.48 per cent.

That Lalu Prasad Yadav was not decimated in the manner of some other chief ministers is a tribute to his remarkable staying power. Even after losing more than 40 seats, the RJD has emerged as the single-largest party. While his vote-bank has been pitted and eroded, many Muslims and Yadavs still voted for him. Many Dalits, though, went over to Paswan, who also appears to have cornered a good chunk of the upper-caste votes in some areas in north Bihar.

The post-election focus has now shifted to Governor Buta Singh: as a dyed-in-the-wool Congress sympathiser and former author of the communally-incendiary shilanyas at Ayodhya, nothing is regarded as beyond him. "He will do as asked by the Centre," says one nervous Bihar leader.

Either way, Buta Singh has an unenviable task. If he installs a non-NDA government in Bihar, it would be seen as "unconstitutional" and partisan — the NDA was, and remains, the largest pre-poll alliance. If he helps in installing a government constituting anti-NDA members, he is going to be the focus of beady scrutiny, making him more controversial than he already is.

While there are divisions between non-RJD parties over government formation, they agree totally about one thing: Lalu Prasad Yadav and his famously dysfunctional family have to be kept out of government, by any manner possible