Lalu’s Contingency Plan

As the fodder scam returns to haunt the RJD leader, his latest ploy to gather votes

Well before India’s Supreme Court restrained the special CBI court in Jharkhand from pronouncing its verdict— slated for 15 July—in a fodder scam case involving the RJD chief Lalu Prasad, the former Bihar Chief Minister had already put a contingency plan in place, fearing indictment.

The contingency plan, according to sources, started taking shape as soon as the Jharkhand High Court on 1 July dismissed Lalu Prasad’s plea to transfer the case to another special CBI court from that of Special CBI Judge PK Singh, alleging a possible bias in the latter’s judgment since he is a relative of PK Shahi, education minister in Bihar’s Nitish Kumar government.

One part of Lalu’s contingency plan, evident in his address to RJD party workers only days after the High Court dismissed his petition, involves ground preparation for a re-run of the spectacle witnessed in Patna 16 years ago when the leader’s arrest on the same charges in the same case was followed by an outburst of public emotion. “I remember how people were crying when I was going to jail. I remember how the party was united in my bad times,” said Lalu Prasad, addressing a large gathering in Patna of party workers from across the state on 5 July, the 17th foundation day of the RJD. Although he did not refer to the verdict expected on 15 July, he made it clear to partymen what he expected of them in the event of its going against him.

That, however, was merely one part of his contingency plan. The other part involves appointing a working president to run the party in the event of his conviction. According to sources, unlike 1997, when Lalu was in power and installed his wife Rabri Devi as Chief Minister after his arrest, this time he seems determined to look beyond his family. “It’s been decided that Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Shakuni Choudhary and Abdul Bari Siddiqui would get major responsibilities in case of an adverse judgement,” says a senior RJD leader on condition of anonymity. “Raghuvansh Prasad Singh was the preferred choice for the post of working president of the party.”

As observers would expect of a leader of Lalu Prasad’s calculations, his contingency plan is aimed at turning an adverse judgment into a political advantage for the party. Whether his effort pays off cannot be judged at this point, but apart from getting his party workers all charged up with emotion, he expects the plan to help consolidate the support of such social groups as Thakurs, Koeris and Muslims, who could form an electoral bonanza come 2014. While Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is a known Thakur face in the state, Shakuni Choudhary is a Koeri by caste, and Abdul Bari Siddiqui is a recognised Muslim leader in Bihar.

Decimated in the last Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Lalu Prasad’s party has been plotting a political comeback ever since. With a general election due within a year, the RJD has sniffed an opportunity in the dynamics of the recent split between the JD-U and BJP, which were ruling Bihar in a coalition.

In a boost to Lalu Prasad’s ambitions, a Lok Sabha bypoll in June saw RJD candidate Prabhunath Singh, a Thakur, win the state’s Maharajganj constituency by a significant margin, defeating the JD-U’s PK Shahi, the minister who Lalu alleges is related to special CBI judge PK Singh. In that bypoll, not just Yadavs and Thakurs, Muslims are also said to have voted aggressively for the RJD candidate.

The RJD chief, however, may not be able to haul himself out of his legal quagmire. The CBI case, the judgment on which was to be pronounced on 15 July, has been his nemesis in his political career since the mid-1990s. In July 1997, it was this case that had cost him his CMship, and now—just months before the Lok Sabha election—it is catching up with him yet again.

The case relates to the allegedly fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa treasury of undivided Bihar (and which is now part of Jharkhand). Lalu Prasad was Bihar’s Chief Minister at the time. Among the 45 accused in this case is Jagannath Mishra, also a former CM of the state. In all, there are 61 legal cases that concern the state’s fodder scam. The present case is one of five that involve Lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra.

The scam itself, usually pegged at ‘Rs 900 crore’, first surfaced in 1996 when large sums of money were found to have been disbursed by the Bihar state exchequer for the purchase of fodder and medicines for livestock that did not exist.

As many as 54 of the 61 cases were transferred to Jharkhand when it was carved out of Bihar in November 2000. Different CBI courts have issued judgments in 43 cases. The current breather that Lalu Prasad has received from the Supreme Court, however, is only interim. The apex court has granted the CBI and Jharkhand two weeks to file a response to Yadav’s petition. The matter has been posted for hearing on 23 July.

fodder scamJharkhand High CourtLalu Prasad Yadav