Laloo, Sharad…watch out for the third man

“Yadavon mein barah aana Laloo ke saath hain, bankin Sharad keSath,” (75 per cent of the Yadavs are with Laloo, the rest with Sharad), claims Surendra Yadav, a resident of Savela village. Others disagree. “It’s 60:40 in favour of Laloo,” says Prabhat Ranjan Yadav, a resident of Patarghat, some 10 km from the district headquarters.

Whatever be the ratio, the fact remains that the Yadav vote will for the first time go in different directions. Under these circumstance, the support of other castes, notably the Rajputs, Brahmins, Dalits and the Panchpaniya (non-Yadav OBCs) has become critical.

The Rajputs, of whom there are about 1.25 lakhthe total electorate is around 10 lakhare no less confused. “We’ll vote for N.K. Singh,” says Ramanand Singh, a farmer from Vishnupur. “But our top priority is to ensure Laloo’s defeat.” The two candidates are going all out. In the otherwise drab day-to-day life, this also provides a comic interlude.

Popular songs have been rewritten with loudspeakers blaring day in and day out.

Jab tak rahega samose mein aaloo, tab takrahega Bharat main Laloo (Laloo will dominate the country as long as there are potatoes in samosas), is countered with Agar 97 mein sar gaya aaloo, to 98 mein sarega Laloo. (If it was potatoes which rotted in 1997, it will be Laloo who will rot this year.)Laloo’s bandwagon rolls in with a live band and women dancers from Patna. Will all this work? That’s a question which can be answered only a week later. For the moment, however, as Anil Prasad Bhagat, a businessman in Singheswar says: “It is N. K. Singh who remains an obstacle in the way of Sharad and victory”.