Union Minister Sharad Yadav’s presentation before the Election Commission today was quite confused. The JD(U) leader could not decide after returning from Madhepura, how strong he should make his complaint regarding the ‘‘malpractices’’ of adversary and RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav. So he ‘‘expressed his overall satisfaction with the Madhepura polling’’ and found the EC observers ‘‘very alert and vigilant’’. Nevertheless, he said there was rigging in 205 booths. Then he modified it, insisting that in 45 of those there was ‘‘looting’’. In the rest, he said there was periodic rigging. ‘‘It went on for two hours and then it stopped and then it again continued for a brief while.’’As he lodged his complaint, Sharad Yadav was again quite effusive about the central paramilitary forces. ‘‘Wherever paramilitary forces were deployed in adequate numbers, there was no foul play,’’ said Yadav. Otherwise, said Yadav’s lieutenants, the homeguards and the policemen would have had a field day.He had another problem — that almost 1.75 lakh voters could not vote. And it was because of ‘‘technicalities’’. So, here was Sharad Yadav, who had come to complain about Laloo Yadav, grumbling about electronic voting machines and poor people being turned away because they did not have proper identification papers.
