Taking on the top boss

It is widely known that the only RJD leader who can stand up to Lalu Prasad Yadav is his cabinet colleague Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. Lalu generally respects his colleague, but last week it seemed Raghuvansh overstepped his brief. It so happened that at last week8217;s Cabinet meeting, when the Lokpal Bill came up for consideration, Prasad, whose turn to speak came before Lalu, supported the proposal. Lalu was certainly not ready for this. In fact, he had spoken to Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Pawar on jointly opposing the Bill. But the idea that his own partyman would support the proposal had not occurred to him. Undeterred, however, Lalu opposed the Bill, and so did Paswan and Pawar, the latter two arguing that there were many other things in the Common Minimum Programme that needed more urgent attention than the Lokpal Bill. Eventually the Bill was referred to the Law Ministry without any decision.