Lalu Yadav: Lost his kingdom in 2005, now kingmaker role too

PATNA: When he was riding high on the success of power, he flaunted himself as the raja of Bihar. Truly, the maverick Lalu held on to his fort in Bihar for15 long years but his political fortunes began sliding from 2005. The Lok Sabha election has proved to be another nemesis for Lalu, who may now find hard to retrieve the lost ground in Bihar. The kind of political casualty Lalu has suffered now will make things exceedingly difficult for him now on the political turf of Bihar.

Ditto with the LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan who and his party have been handed out a crushing defeat at the hustings. His political plight can be judged from the fact that he could not retain his traditional seat from Hajipur.
Worse still, the LJP could not even open its account in Bihar this time even though it fielded candidates on 12 seats.

In comparison to its alliance partner LJP, Lalu���s RJD managed to win four out of the 28 seats it contested this time. However, unlike Paswan, Lalu managed to retain his seat from Saran.

But he could not win from Patliputra, the second seat he contested apart from Saran.

Interestingly, Lalu lost out the Patliputra seat to the JD(U) nominee Ranjan Prasad Yadav, who had fallen out with him (Lalu) a few years back and was now looking to settle his old score with him. Clearly, Ranjan has now emerged as a giant killer after trouncing Lalu from the Patliputra seat.

The pain for Lalu will only prolong now as the Congress may not be willing to accommodate him in the next UPA government at the Centre. With the UPA doing so well at the national level, it may actually not need the support of the RJD in the government formation at the Centre.

���Laluji was shunted out of Bihar in the 2005 November assembly elections. Now he will be ousted from the Centre as he is not likely to be included in the UPA government. Laluji has been enjoying fruits of power for nearly 20 years but the loss of power will bring all sorts of problems for him,��� commented a JD(U) functionary.

Admittedly, Lalu is not keeping cordial relationship with the Congress after they broke out in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. The fact is that the Congress had gone solo in this election and now will not like to politically associate with Lalu���s RJD in its future scheme of things. ���The Congress had lost its presence in Bihar because we supported Lalu. Now we are on the revival track and it will be a political harakiri for us if we again associate with Lalu,��� said Umakant Singh, a congress leader.