Rabri garnishes her image with a sprinkling of public relations

Meanwhile, the gardeners are at work. Not just the ones who tend the lawns of the Chief Minister’s residence, but home-grown spin doctors who coax her image into full bloom with their words.

“Look at this great lady. Her husband is in jail, her heart must be full of pain at the injustice being done to her husband, but she carries on bravely,” said one, who stands out from the crowd wearing kurta-pyjamas because of his safari suit.

Another one agrees with him, a trifle too vigorously, and adds: “After all, whose wife is she? Having been married to a mahaan admi like Laloo, some of his greatness is bound to have rubbed off on her.”

Somewhere they would like to recast her image. Bindu Jha, who works as a Public Relations Officer in the Chief Minister’s secretariat, is clearly tired of the Press milking the “homely wife” image. “Please don’t paint her only as a masala pisne wali,” he states categorically.

He reels off her many newly-acquired qualities: How she comes to the Secretariat punctually at 10 am, how she reviews the workings of each Department systematically and how she works a full day without respite.

Says Bihar’s new Minister of Education Jayaprakash Narayan Yadav: “We have full confidence that she will meet the challenge. She is as concerned as her husband about the plight of the poor and about communal harmony.”

Does she have everybody’s support? Jayaprakash nods his head vigorously: “We are all behind her in this hour of turbulence. The party is totally united to meet this chunauti (challenge).”

But his words are clearly only for public consumption. With its most important resident removed from the scene of action, 1, Anne Marg is now alive with palace intrigue.

At least three groups are fighting for dominance in the post-Laloo era. The first is headed by Raghunath Jha, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, who is always at hand to take over the microphone when words fail “Madam”.

Known to be close to former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, Jha has a well-deserved reputation of being the lathi-wielding man of Bihar politics.There is another group, represented by Education Minister and family friend Jayaprakash Yadav. His advantage is his access to family members who seem to repose trust in him, and a relatively clean image.

Then there is the family group comprising the Chief Minister’s three brothers — Sadhu Yadav, Subhash Yadav and Prabhunath Yadav. Fortunately for the others, there is no great love lost between them.

All of them are ambitious, but only Sadhu with his close mafia connections, wields any real clout in 1, Anne Marg. The other two, Class 3 Government employees, nevertheless, hang around to occasionally sniff the murky air.Perhaps Laloo Prasad Yadav, before he left for the Bihar Military Police campus, seemed to have divined the ambitions of little men and queered their pitch somewhat by appointing seasoned bureaucrat Mahavir Prasad as Officer on Special Duty.

But even Prasad cannot persuade Madam to meet the media today. Meanwhile, the crowd waiting for an audience with Madam, both within the residence and outside, is growing by the minute.

Those outside are the powerless ones, who come from distant places with bits of paper in their hand, for some favour or the other. She emerges around 4 pm to meet some of them. They relate stories of outrage and poverty.

She listens quietly and issues instructions to the officials who accompany her. A crowd gathers to watch her. “Madam is learning fast,” says one official proudly.

But it is the big guns in the inner drawing room of the Chief Minister’s residence who really matter. They now include Kapoori Thakur, an associate and Bihar’s Minister of Finance Shankar Prasad Tikriwal. The latter is evidently in an angry mood: “The judiciary wants the Army. This is nonsense. We should investigate the nexus between the judiciary and the police. Together, they are undermining democracy,” he thunders.

He has a point and the others in the room nod. But there is no real feeling of outrage left in anyone.

Each one in the room are too busy looking over their own shoulders, plotting where they stand in the hierarchy of power, to concentrate on constitutional questions at the moment. Clearly, it is each one for himself or herself here.

For the moment, at least, Laloo is just a picture on the walls of 1, Anne Marg and Madam a useful voice and face to keep the show going.