RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav may be known as Bihar’s strongman of yesteryear, a politician whom the state’s ruling JD(U)-BJP alliance and its supporters like to portray as little more than a spent force.
But Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav certainly looks determined to do his best to ensure the RJD-LJP combine’s victory in the imminent Assembly polls.
With each passing day before the polls, likely to be held between October 20 and November 10, Mr Yadav’s usually rambling, rustic and flippant speeches are getting fast replaced by articulate, pointed attacks on his archrival Nitish Kumar’s government. A televised debate organised by a local news channel in Patna on Tuesday saw what many described as a “new, improved Lalu”.
The former railway minister, under attack both from the left and the right for the “jungle raj” perpetrated in Bihar during the RJD’s fifteen years of rule between 1990 and 2005, led categorical attacks on Nitish Kumar’s ongoing five-year rule, describing it as a government that flourished mainly by the huge development funds given by the UPA-I government from 2005 and 2009 and smart publicity in the media.
Control over crime in Bihar, the much-hyped hallmark of Mr Kumar’s regime, drew scathing taunts from Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav as he, accompanied by ally and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, claimed that records showed 4.38 lakh cases of serious crimes were registered in Bihar during the JD(U)-BJP government. Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, a former Bihar chief minister, also strongly raised burning issues such as the alleged corruption as apparent in the CAG reports and the 120 reported hunger deaths in Bihar during the NDA rule.
Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav’s eagerness to mince no words and spare nobody was evident when he openly criticised noted development economist Dr Shaibal Gupta, a member secretary of the Patna-based Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI). Mr Yadav practically suggested that Dr Gupta was admiring the Nitish government because the government had given ADRI to do much work related to the finance department even at the cost of compromising official secrecy.
“Sixty per cent of all houses built in Patna in the past five years have been purchased by the bureaucrats. The so-called change in Bihar has meant massive rise in corruption,” said Mr Yadav. Apart from him and Dr Gupta, the live TV debate was participated by Bihar BJP chief Dr C.P. Thakur, CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, BJP leader Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
Sources said Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi declined to participate in the debate with Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav despite having been invited.
The same was with the Congress, whose leaders reportedly declined to attend it.