The rift deepens

As the Congress and RJD bare their fangs,Lalus future is at stake

In The Ground Beneath Her Feet,Salman Rushdie lampooned him through a character called Piloo Doodhwala wife Golmatol,daughters Halwa and Rasgulla,who swindles the state for a non-existent goat farm,and is put in jail. In the novel,this only

increases his popularity,for prosecuting Piloo began to be described as an act of vengeance by the English-medium liberal elite against a true man of the masses. Of course,in the liberal elites eyes,Lalu Prasad has gone from being the symbol of a rapacious politics and Bihars cussedness to being a phenomenally resourceful railway minister who could teach diligent MBAs a thing or two.

After years of being Bihars indispensable politician,he was disgraced and jailed over a fodder scam when he coolly installed his wife as CM,and then given a second chance after he wangled a key UPA ministry. But Lalu now finds himself on shaky ground among an electorate who might have moved on from his brand of politics. Though he outdid himself as railway minister,trying to get investment into

Bihar through railway-related infrastructure projects before the election,he is known to insist that what really works in Bihar is the caste calculus the RJD relies on a winning MY Muslim-Yadav combination. This time,his grip on that is loosening Nitish Kumars development-driven tenure is widely regarded as a success,and Lalu is also jittery about support from Muslims. Those votes are,in fact,crucial because the Fourth Fronts OBC-

Yadav-Dalit Dussadh social combinations are matched against,and more or less equalled by,the OBC-Kurmi-EBC-upper caste combination of the JDU. Lalu doesnt tire of drumming home his secular credentials he famously arrested L.K. Advanis Ayodhya juggernaut but it remains to be seen how long he can extract electoral goodwill from this theme. He is himself up against the BSPs Muslim candidate Saleem Parwez in Saran,a constituency freshly carved out of pre-delimitation Chhapra. Meanwhile,Nitish Kumar has cleverly played a non-committal,who knows where I will be tomorrow position,tacitly signalling his openness to the UPA and making himself more palatable to minorities.

This,clearly,is a turn of events that Lalu Prasad cannot afford. Fighting the Congress also fritters away his strength,and he desperately needs a presence at the Centre. But for now,he refuses to be cowed by the Congresss fighting words.