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Patna: Poor performance in the two bypolls in Bihar left Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad disappointed enough to leave Patna for the national capital earlier this week, three weeks away. before their expected departure.
He had reached Patna on 24 October and announced that he would speak for a month. But he flew back on Wednesday. RJD MLC Sunil Kumar Singh said he was called for a check-up after his kidney problem escalated.
However, the move came a day after the ruling Janata Dal (United) retained both the assembly seats – Tarapur in Munger district and Kusheshwar Asthani in Darbhanga – scheduled to be held on October 30.
According to RJD leaders, the party leaders, who were released from jail in the fodder scam cases earlier this year, were disappointed after holding election meetings in both the constituencies.
“He was disappointed and it showed on his face. Eventually, despite his critical health conditions, he held massive election meetings in both the places and hoped to win Tarapur,” said a senior RJD leader on condition of anonymity.
NDA leaders even taunted that he actually helped the ruling JD(U), as his physical appearance at an election campaign six years later evoked memories of ‘jungle raj’ among voters.
Lalu Yes JD(U) state president Umesh Kushwaha told ThePrint that it reminded people of the ‘jungle raj’ and dominance of one caste during the Lalu-Rabri regime.
BJP leaders also had the same opinion. Lalu YesThe NDA would have got an additional 6,000 to 7,000 votes in both the assembly seats. Their meetings were huge. But it was dominated by only two classes. His announcement that he will topple the Nitish government if the RJD wins both the seats prompted NDA voters to come to the booth, especially for women,” BJP MLA Gyanendra Singh Gyanoo told ThePrint.
Lalu Prasad was the uncrowned king of Bihar politics from 1990 to 2005. But this period is mostly remembered as a chaotic period in the history of Bihar.
He then lost power to friend-turned-enemy Nitish Kumar, who captured the votes of the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) who had lost to Lalu. EBC constitutes 29 per cent of Bihar’s population. Lalu was left with only Muslim and Yadav votes – over 30 per cent but not enough to win the election.
Nitish has been the CM since then. The two former friends briefly regrouped during the 2015 state elections under the banner of the Mahagathbandhan but Nitish withdrew to the NDA in 2017 and Lalu had to go to judicial custody in fodder scam cases.
After getting bail in April this year, Lalu moved to his elder daughter Misa Bharti’s residence in Delhi, where he was staying for medical help suffering from various ailments.
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Was RJD looking for sympathy votes?
In the 2020 assembly elections, the RJD removed the faces of Lalu Prasad and his wife and former CM Rabri Devi from posters and banners to separate the party from the legacy of ‘Jungle Raj’.
Lalu’s son and party leader Tejashwi Yadav called RJD an ‘A-Z’ party, which represents all sections of the society, instead of hurting the Muslim-Yadav social base. The strategy paid dividends and the Grand Alliance won 110 seats against the NDA’s 125 and the RJD emerged as the largest political party in the assembly.
The gap between the NDA and the Grand Alliance was less than 12,000 votes, indicating that Tejashwi had managed to pull votes. Non-Muslim-Yadav section of the society.
This time too, Tejashwi fought a vigorous electoral battle for the two assembly seats going to the by-elections.
It was on the last day of campaigning (27 October) that Lalu Prasad was brought to address two big public meetings at both Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan.
Lalu YesHis long absence from Bihar and his critical health conditions have created sympathy for him among all sections of the society. We thought it would mean more votes. But it did not work,” said an RJD MLA, who did not wish to be quoted.
“We started lagging behind in Tarapur after the 18th round as the population of Yadavs, Muslims and Banias decreased in the areas where counting of votes had started,” the MLA said.
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BJP says Lalu cannot convert crowd into votes, RJD disagrees
Speaking to ThePrint, former Deputy CM and BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi said that Lalu Prasad has been a crowd puller since the 1990s, but converting those crowds into votes is a completely different matter.
Lalu Yes A polarizing figure remains in Bihar’s politics. He only excites the sections of his social base. Other sections remain unaffected by their presence or absence,” he said.
“RJD removed his picture from its poster in the 2020 assembly elections. It paid off. Now that he has been re-inducted by the RJD, he has reminded the people of Bihar what his rule was,” Modi said.
However, Sunil Kumar Singh, RJD MLC and a close aide of the Lalu family, called it “sheer hypocrisy” on the part of NDA leaders.
“When we removed Lalu’s photo Yes, He taunted us that we are ashamed to put his picture. In these by-elections, he addressed public meetings and now NDA is again talking about ‘Jungle Raj’.
Despite the defeat, NDA leaders should realize that we have got more votes than in the 2020 assembly elections. Our vote share in Tarapur increased from 36 per cent to 44 per cent. Even in Kusheshwar Asthan, we got 2 per cent more votes than what the Congress got in the 2020 elections. We got votes from non-Muslim and Yadav sections. It was possible because of ‘Lalu magic’.”
(Edited by Amit Upadhyay)
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