Siwan killings may rewrite magic MY formula

The five victims belonged to one family; now, only Riazuddin is left. 8220;Our dada his grandfather, 90 year-old Abdul Rahman had no enemies. He was sleeping when the assailants descended on him.8221;

He recounts how they escaped the gangsters8217; bullets, by scaling the walls and crouching in the paddy fields, emerging only after the assailants left. The sight that greeted him was that of the five bodies of his family. 8220;Satish Pandey8217;s men may have chosen this village because it is a Muslim dominated village and a base of RJD MP Sahabuddin,8221; he concedes.

The killings in Siwan are a pointer to the strain on Laloo Yadav8217;s Muslim-Yadav MY combination. A formula that has so far been electorally successful is now being rewritten, and Laloo8217;s reported kid glove treatment of the recent killings to bail out Shahabuddin hasn8217;t helped.

Yadavs still bristle when they recall that after the killings of 11 Yadavs at Mojahidpur 8212; a pre-runner to the Tahira slaying 8212; all attempts were made to keep Sahabuddin8217;s name out of the FIR. Yadavs fear that with growing Muslim consciousness, they will lose their identity.

Umesh Prasad, a retired government official, points to Babubnia Path, a road deep with potholes that8217;s difficult to negotiate. 8220;Siwan8217;s politics are like this Babunia path. It8217;s full of intricate relations and complications.8221;

He says, 8220;Huge sums of money have been coming in to Siwan through various channels. The railway yard is full of construction material, over a hundred trucks regularly transport goods. Siwan has emerged as a major trading centre for other districts.8221; Apart from this, remittances from the Gulf have also been increasing.

This economic boom of sorts is tightly controlled by politicians and criminal gangs. And in Muslim-dominated Siwan, the Yadavs have been itching to get a slice of the pie.

Even those Yadavs who consolidated their position under the Laloo regime are unhappy. Laxman Rai from Pratap Pur, another Sahabuddin stronghold, says, 8220;Land relations are changing in villages. Muslims are now purchasing land, and poor Yadavs are facing problems. They don8217;t have the support of political leaders, and in most cases, it8217;s the CPI ML Liberation that8217;s helping them out.8221;

Amarnath Yadav, who8217;s the face of the CPI ML in Siwan, says, 8220;There8217;s been a positive swing in our direction. I was defeated this election, but I mustered massive Yadav support. In the last Lok Sabha elections, we polled 1.24 lakh votes.8221;

The Muslim-Yadav equation is under strain, says Amarnath Yadav, and 8220;Yadavs are fighting to keep their prestige intact.8221; An alternative may well be provided by the CPI ML.