Lalu has scripted his own fall: former close aides

NEW DELHI: With Lalu Prasad facing an unprecedented drubbing in the Bihar Assembly polls, his former close aides are rejoicing, saying the RJD chief had scripted his own fall by focussing on his family at the cost of colleagues and common people.

"Power had gone in the head of Lalu Prasad which took him away from people and political colleagues," said Ranjan Prasad Yadav, Prasad's friend of 40 years, who is now a Lok Sabha member representing JD(U).

"The voters have given him a befitting reply," he said, while accusing Lalu of dividing Bihar by getting a resolution on creation of Jharkhand passed in the Assembly in 2000 "just to keep his wife (Rabri Devi) in power".

The severe drubbing he got in the Bihar elections proves "this is the end of the road for him", said Ranjan Yadav, who defeated the RJD supremo in the last Lok Sabha polls from Patliputra constituency in Patna district on a JD(U) ticket.

RJD had a humiliating show in the Assembly polls, bagging only 22 seats in 243-member House, as compared to 54 in the last assembly.

"Lalu played his last innings (in the recent Bihar Assembly polls)...there is no no future for him in Bihar politics," said Ranjan Yadav who had served as working President of RJD when Lalu Prasad had gone to jail in connection with fodder scam.

He later left him to join LJP and then JD(U) before the last Parliamentary elections.

"He (Lalu) not only ditched his colleagues but cheated the humble masses of Bihar who posed faith in him for 15 long years," he said.

Similar sentiments were echoed by the RJD chief's other former close aides like former Union minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh, who left him to join Congress on the eve of Bihar polls, and Sadhu Yadav, Lalu's brother-in-law who is now in Congress.

Akhilesh Singh, who served as a minister at the Centre in UPA-I, said Lalu had become "arrogant" because of which he "hated any suggestion from party colleagues forcing people like me to move away" from him.

Sadhu Yadav, once considered the muscle behind the political strength of the RJD chief, said, "Lalujee has always hated people like me who will tell bitter truth to him."

"He always prefers to be encircled by self-seekers who poison him against people like me who will come and tell him the truth about the party and expectations of people," said Sadhu Yadav, who himself lost the present Assembly poll from Gopalganj on Congress ticket.