Manoj Chaurasia writes : Better half comes to Lalu’s aid

PATNA, April 26: She may not be as qualified as her colleagues elsewhere and as politically conscious as other politicians, yet the 50-year-old former chief minister Mrs Rabri Devi has been single-handedly managing the election campaign of her husband and Union railway minister Mr Lalu Prasad. Mr Prasad is caught in the toughest battle of his political career spanning over 32 years as a defeat in this general election would spell his departure from national politics, a prospect he will not relish after he lost power to his rival Mr Nitish Kumar in his home state.
The problem with the RJD is that it has no star leaders except for the couple, forcing the rivals to describe it as a party of “husband and wife”. While one of her brothers Mr Sadhu Yadav, also known as Anirudh Prasad, has rebelled against the party and contested elections on a Congress ticket, two other brothers Mr Subhash Yadav, Rajya Sabha member, and Mr Prabhunath Yadav, have stayed away from the elections. The LJP has no star campaigner except for its president Mr Ram Vilas Paswan.
Thus, while the Congress and the NDA have sent leaders in bulk ~ from Mrs Sonia Gandhi to Mr Rahul Gandhi and from Mr LK Advani to Mr Arun Jaitely ~ to campaign for their candidates, the RJD-LJP has only these three star campaigners. Although the RJD-LJP has joined hands with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP, its leaders are more concerned about retaining the party tally on the home turf of UP, facing strong challenges from three sides ~ ruling BSP, BJP and the Congress.
These rival election managers are not only actively campaigning for their candidates but have also launched attacks on the RJD, telling the masses how the party is engaged in caste-based politics, is fomenting caste and communal tension in the society, has pushed Bihar to the brink during its 15-year-rule and how its president ate away animal fodder.
With Mr Prasad and Mr Paswan attacking “communal forces” and their “achievements” like demolition of the Babari Masjid in Ayodhya and month-long communal riots in Bhagalpur, Mrs Rabri Devi has virtually taken upon the task of targeting adversaries while seeking votes for her husband.
Wearing a cotton sari with a veil on her head, Mrs Rabri Devi has been hopping constituencies in the state on a hired chopper in the company of some small time leaders and tearing into her rivals with whatever political experience she was able to gain during her eight-year stint as chief minister of Bihar. She fires salvos at her opponents, charging up the crowds in no time.
She describes chief minister Mr Kumar as “mean” and “kichad ka aadami” (dirty man), and his party (JD-U) chief Mr Sharad Yadav as “ghuspaithia” (infiltrator) who must be “driven out of his constituency”. She says how the man from MP, who once was associated with the Mandal movement, has sneaked into the BJP’s kamandal, in an oblique reference to Mr Yadav. “He (CM) is a mean, ‘kichad ka aadami’… I don’t want to talk about him”, was her comment when asked to comment on the CM’s remark that her husband Mr Prasad will lose elections this time. The chief minister has refused to comment but is telling the masses how the former chief was abusing him in public.
She is also telling the crowd at her election rallies how the NDA government in Bihar is dishonouring women, how repression against the fairer sex has increased under the present dispensation, how Bihar was bifurcated during the NDA regime at the Centre, how Nitish Kumar government’s ‘development’ is confined to papers only, how the CM has backed out from his earlier promise of turning Bihar into “Singapore”, how her husband is a “real Vikas Purush” and so on…
Mrs Rabri Devi, in fact, has turned out to be the only trusted family member of her husband so far. Even while he was going to jail in the fodder scam cases in July 1997, it was this Rabri Devi whom the RJD had offered the post of chief minister. During the 1999 LS polls as well when the RJD was battling for its political survival after all of Mr Prasad’s erstwhile political friends ~ Mr George Fernandes, Mr Nitish Kumar, Mr Sharad Yadav and Mr Ram Vilas Paswan ~ ganged up against him and were jointly fighting under the leadership of the NDA, it was only Mrs Rabri Devi who had come to her husband’s aid. The RJD had to be content with only seven seats out of a total 54 LS seats in then undivided Bihar.

Source : The Statesman