Sulking Laloo shuts himself in, hope steps out in Patna

And Patna’s streets were asking many relevant questions: Does this really mean the end of the 15-year-old reign of Laloo Yadav? Will Sonia Gandhi order Buta Singh to play the marionette and hand over the strings to Laloo? Will it just be a temporary break before political churning allows Laloo to come back through another route?

Once dusk fell, Laloo’s exit seemed a certainty.

On Harding Road, not far from Raj Bhavan, young men began piling up twigs, stems and dry leaves. ‘‘This is early preparation for Holi ka dahan,’’ the bonfire lit on the eve of Holi to burn accumulated sins and evil.

It was symbolic that the bonfire was being planned around the time it must have dawned on Laloo-Rabri that they will finally have to give up their residence-rights to 1 Anne Marg.

This evening, Patna was not really celebrating. But smiles of hope broke out after sunset, handshakes became more vigorous under streetlamps and conversations were more animated.

Laloo Yadav had alienated the cosmopolitan middle class and the forward castes so much, that few in Patna recalled his moments of political integrity in the Seventies and Eighties when he was a social justice crusader.

At the BJP party office, Rameshwar Prasad, deputy leader of the BJP in the last Assembly, explained: ‘‘It was too long ago. Ego and self-aggrandizement undid all that past sacrifice. Laloo Yadav threw out social justice with his old clothes in the Nineties and did justice only to himself and his brothers-in-law.’’

Across the road at the spruced up JD(U) headquarters, Laloo’s bete noire, Nitish Kumar has suddenly injected new life into his party cadres. Bihar is seeing less of George Fernandes these days. ‘‘Our party is growing in the shade of one umbrella now,’’ said Bijendra Yadav, the party’s state boss, without mincing words.

And he would not comment on Bihar’s historic day when the setting sun was finally disempowering Laloo. ‘‘Paswan has spoilt everything. This could have been a great day. Now we are all in a blind alley.’’

Laloo has always loved easy symbolisms. He doted on a darker shade of green because he thought it would endear him to the minorities. Today, the green paint on the chief minister’s bungalow gates appeared to have lost its sheen. And among craning faces in that crowd of onlookers outside was Dr S M Abdullah, a homoeopath from Darbhanga. Once a Laloo fanatic, Dr Abdullah was today an LJP supporter. He had come to enjoy his Sunday to this ‘‘political arena’’ where ‘‘the invincible pehalwan was being finally floored.’’

Word was sent out that Laloo would not step out immediately. State RJD president Abdul Bari Siddiqui approached the microphones to assert that the Governor had done nothing wrong. The Sunday crowd milled about the concrete patch outside Raj Bhavan, where television camera tripods have taken roots over the past week.

Praveen Kishore Sinha, Birjan Paswan and Prem Sagar Gupta stood gaping at the politicians flitting in and out. The three made an interesting group. Sinha, a Kurmi was a diehard Nitish and JD(U) supporter, Gupta swore by the BJP and, needless, to say, Birjan saw nothing beyond Paswan and LJP. They had one prayer on their lips: The three parties have to come together.

Birjan spoke as though he knew his leader’s mind: ‘‘Ram Vilas will give up that Muslim emphasis in two to three months. That would suit him politically. No one will be able to call him a turncoat. This mandate was meant for JD(U), BJP and LJP to form a government.’’

Near Chitkohra Bridge, Anil Kumar Malakar was a happy ten-year-old this afternoon.

Outside the LJP office, his marigold garlands were disappearing every minute. Paswan’s supporters were saying it with flowers.

At Hotel Maurya, Ram Vilas himself had closeted himself with his supporters in Room 323. He would not say how much Laloo Prasad Yadav had contributed to Bihar’s history. He only hoped Laloo was history.

The first crackers were heard after 7 pm. Bihar will wake up to a different morning tomorrow.