Tainted halo

The Supreme Court’s notice to Mr and Mrs Laloo Prasad Yadav is good news indeed, and bad. In asking the powerful couple to show cause why their bail in the multi-crore fodder scam cases must not be cancelled, given their alleged bid to interfere with the course of justice, the apex court has served up a reassuring message: this scandal hasn’t been completely buried under routine systemic drag and apathy. Nice to know, also, that the fodder scam cases have not yet been irretrievably consigned to that unlit, anonymous place that all cases involving high profile politicians are inevitably shunted to. The apex court’s notice is bad because it doubles up as a reminder that in our country scams go on forever, no closure in sight.

For the UPA government, this voice from the past must be particularly distressing. Laloo Yadav is a favoured ally, he holds up a weighty end in the government’s power equations. He is the minister who has been most zealous, arguably clocking in second only to the unbeatable Arjun Singh, in exhorting the ruling alliance to use its power to settle scores with the NDA. Laloo, it was, who sought to dredge up the Godhra issue in a blatantly political manoeuvre by instituting yet another probe. Laloo, again, who brandished a longago magazine issue in an obviously desperate bid to reinvigorate the Ayodhya case against L.K. Advani.

The documentary evidence submitted to the court of just how Laloo has tried to leverage his position at the Centre to his advantage — by effecting sudden, motivated transfers of key functionaries in the cases against him and his spouse — may yet make a dent in something that has proved to be far more resilient than the UPA’s credibility. Long years ago, Laloo was invested with a halo. He was the backward class messiah, proud herald bearer of the forces of democratisation. Despite the piling of the evidence of corruption and abdication, Laloo has been permitted in an undemanding public conversation to keep the halo. This is a mockery of the very cause he is touted to represent. Until Laloo Prasad Yadav is acquitted in the court of law — not in the people’s court — he must be seen as just another one of those ‘‘tainted’’ ministers.