His 14-year-rule in Bihar may have led to economic stagnation, lack of development and soaring crime rate, but anti-incumbency is yet to threaten RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav’s social base.Avenging his humiliation in the 1999 election, Yadav led his RJD-LJP-Cong alliance into winning 26 of the 37 seats in which counting took place this time. Counting did not take place in three seats — there will be total repoll in Chapra, and partial in Siwan and Bettiah. In Madhepura, Laloo defeated Sharad Yadav by over 70,000 votes. In 1999, Laloo had lost to Sharad by 30,000 votes and his party was reduced to six seats. Laloo’s newly formed alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan, who has a good following among the Dalits, and the sustaining cohesion of his 14-year-old Muslim-Yadav combination, catapulted his alliance into a victory that may have surpassed his own expectations. Added to this, the upper-caste voters drifted away from BJP in large numbers — in the Brahmin stronghold Mithilanchal region, NDA’s Jagannath Mishra lost in Jhanjharpur and cricketer Kirti Azad lost in Darbhanga. Across north and south Bihar, the RJD alliance performed spectacularly. When the poll process began, Laloo’s camp was fractured and confused — CPI refused to join the alliance, Congress cribbed about the four seats allotted to it and many RJD leaders crossed over to NDA. But, Laloo consolidated his base and broke new grounds. He blunted the hi-tech BJP campaign about the express highways with a simple question: ‘‘Will they let you ride your bullock carts on the highway?” In the end, Laloo emerged a happy man and reiterated his support to a Congress-led government at the Centre. ‘‘We favour the Congress leading the coalition government. The RJD has no particular demands of representation, but we will demand Bihar’s due share in Central aid,” he said. In Patna, his wife and CM Rabri Devi repeated the assertion and named Sonia as the prime ministerial candidate. As Laloo repeated his magic yet again, several high-profile Union ministers had to bite the dust — Nitish Kumar lost Barh, Digvijay Singh Banka, Shahanawaz Hussain Kishenganj, Hukkum Deo Narayan Yadav Madhubani and C.P. Thakur Patna. All had won the respective seats in 1999. Rajiv Pratap Rudy is facing Laloo Yadav in Chapra where repolling will be held on May 31. Nitish, sensing danger, contested in a second constituency, Nalanda, which he won.NDA convenor George Fernandes won from Muzaffarpur by 9,000 votes. Sushil Modi won Bhagalpur for BJP. Prominent among the RJD-Cong-LJP winners are Meira Kumar (Sasaram) former Delhi police commissioner Nikhil Kumar (Aurangabad) and Ram Vilas Paswan (Hajipur). Laloo’s controversial brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav has won from Gopalganj.
