Delimitation exercise forces Lalu to contest two seats

Patna Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, who turned an ailing Indian Railways into a "cash cow", is contesting two seats in the upcoming general election since he is not sure if his "success story" will fetch him enough votes in his home base.

According to an official report, the railways posted a profit of Rs900 billion during Lalu's five-year tenure as railway minister. Yet the RJD leader is unsure about his victory from a constituency where his caste-men are no longer in a dominant position after completion of the delimitation exercise by the Election Commission.

Bihar has 40 parliamentary seats and the geographical profiles of many of these constituencies have changed after the delimitation exercise.

Like in 2004, when Lalu contested from Chhapra and Madhepura (winning both), he will once again contest two seats. In addition to Chhapra, which he now represents in Parliament, Lalu will file his nomination from Patliputra.

The Chhapra seat has now been renamed Saran. According to sources close to Lalu, the RJD boss is finding the going tough in his old constituency since caste equations have changed after the delimitation exercise. Previously, his fellow Yadavs dominated the upper caste Rajputs in Chhapra, but this has changed now.

The only balancing factor is the Muslim vote, but the problem is that Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded a Muslim candidate against the railway minister. Thus, the more the BSP candidate cuts into minority votes, the more remote Lalu's chances become.

This has forced Lalu to try his luck from Patliputra, which comprises the Danapur, Maner, Phulwarisharif, Masaurhi, Paliganj and Bikram assembly segments.

These areas are not new to Lalu - he contested from Danapur when he was the chief minister of Bihar. This is before he was forced to quit after being charge-sheeted in a scandal involving embezzlement of $267 million meant for buying cattle fodder.

What is important here is that Lalu's profile has undergone a metamorphosis between 2004 and 2009. In the 2004 polls, he went to the voters as a tainted leader who "ate cattle fodder". But today Lalu is credited with turning the railways around.

Notably, Lalu has done a lot for Chhapra since he was declared elected after a keen contest between him and the Bharatiya Janata Party heavyweight and former Indian civil aviation minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Lalu's victory was initially countermanded over complains of large-scale rigging and fresh elections were held. In the end he defeated Rudi with a comfortable margin of 60,000 votes and took oath as a railway minister.

He brought a number of projects to Chhapra during his tenure as railway minister. They include the Chhapra rail wheel factory, Sonepur wagon workshop and Marhaura locomotive manufacturing plant.

Many other smaller projects were also launched in Chhapra, yet Lalu is not quite sure if his "development schemes" would impress the voters in Bihar, where everything is viewed through caste angles.



The writer is a Patna-based freelance journalist.