Patna: Lalu Prasad, the rustic politician who once promised to make Bihar's roads as 'smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks', was dealt a resounding slap by voters in Bihar bringing into question whether his kind of politics can flourish again.
The darling of the masses, the 62-year-old RJD strongman is one politician who defies stereotypes but the magic which helped him and his wife Rabri rule Bihar for 15 years till 2005 making them a dominant force appears to be on the wane if the party's rout in the Assembly elections is a pointer.
Lalu, who in terms of flowery wit and personal charisma has hardly any match in the political arena, rose from the ranks of a student leader during the days of JP movement to a national level politician with his stint in Railways an important milestone in public life after he was credited for its much publicised turnaround.
Lalu's caste-based politics had yielded dividends in an impoverished state with poor roads and deteriorating law and order situation until the Nitish juggernaut ended the RJD rule in 2005. For the second time in five years, he has been consumed by Nitish's new 'SSS' of politics: Sadak, Shiksha, Suraksha (road, education and security).
However, the career path of Lalu, who claims to be a messiah of poor, has also been maligned by rampant charges of corruption against him and his cohorts. When the RJD was in power, Bihar had been even lampooned in Bollywood and beyond as a land of thieves and kidnappers.
Lalu was Bihar chief minister twice between 1990 and 1997 before he handed over the reins of power to his wife Rabri Devi after the Supreme Court asked him to surrender before a trial court following a non-bailable arrest warrant against him in a conspiracy case in connection with the Rs 950-crore fodder scam.
He has also been sent to jail on a few occasions.
He was president of undivided Janata Dal between January 1996 and July 1997 before launching the RJD, engineering a split in the party in July 1997 after his detractors like former Union minister Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, now president of Lok Janshakti Party - an ally of RJD - launched a campaign for his ouster.
A BA and LLB from Patna University, Lalu made his entry to the Lok Sabha in March 1977 from Chhapra. He was a member of the state assembly between 1980 and 1989 for two terms and was leader of the Opposition between January 1989 and November 1989.