PATNA: With the special CBI court at Ranchi scheduled to pronounce the sentence on Lalu Prasad and 39 others on February 21 in the fifth fodder scam case related to Doranda treasury, the RJD chief has weathered the odds for the last 26 years since the scam burst in 1996 and his name also figured as a conspirator, as he was the CM and finance minister of undivided Bihar.
He has been convicted in the four fodder scam cases in Jharkhand. The prison term added up to 14.5 years, of which he has served 3.5 years and was on bail.
The names of eight-time Ghosi MLA Jagdish Sharma and former BJP MLA Dhruv Bhagat also figured among the accused, as both were the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman of the Bihar assembly during different periods.
However, back in June 1997, the CBI had chargesheeted nine politicians, including Lalu and three-time Bihar CM late Jagannath Mishra. Others included former ministers Chandradeo Prasad Verma, Bhola Ram Toofani, Vidya Sagar Nishad and the then MLA RK Rana. Even though Mishra served jail terms, he was finally acquired in all the cases. He died in August 2019. Barring Lalu, the rest have gone in oblivion.
Right from early 1996, the fodder scam has impacted the fortunes of Lalu and he has reacted to the situation for survival, rather instinctively. First, he split the then Janata Dal on July 5, 1997 and formed RJD, besides installing his wife Rabri Devi as the CM in his place. Yet, despite the fodder scam taint, his mass appeal remained intact and he has continued to remain the central political figure in the state, so much so that political groupings are formed on the pro and anti-Lalu plank.
Lalu’s political decline was also steady, even though the fall was not sudden. For, if the JD had 122 MLAs in the 324-member state assembly in March 1990 when the Lalu formed government with outside support, it increased to 167 MLAs in April 1995 on the basis of his mass pull.
After that, as Nitish Kumar appeared on the scene and also began to claw his hold in the state politics in alliance with BJP as part of the NDA. Lalu’s RJD won 124 seats in 2000 (when first Nitish became CM for seven days, but could not muster support of required number of MLAs to win confidence vote), followed by 75 in February 2005, 54 in November 2005 (when Nitish formed the government on the development plank) and only 22 seats in 2010.
The Lalu-Nitish combine did the trick in 2015, when the grand alliance won 151 of the 243 assembly seats and Nitish formed the government with Lalu’s sons Tejashwi as his deputy and Tej Pratap as a minister. However, after Nitish joined NDA again, the RJD could not win even a single parliamentary seat in 2019.
Yet, in the last 40 years or so, Lalu had become a part of the state’s political mythology. In the winter of 1995-96, before the fodder scam burst, he had charmed the delegates at the “Bihari NRI meet” held at Patna, asking those from the US and UK to invest in the state.
The headline of a Delhi-based newspaper story said: “Lalu bun gaya gentleman”, parodying the Bombay (now Mumbai) flick and Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Raju bun Gaya Gentleman.’ Yet, what is also true is that the multi-crore fodder scam hit the state’s ruling political and bureaucratic establishment under Lalu like a cluster bomb.
He has been convicted in the four fodder scam cases in Jharkhand. The prison term added up to 14.5 years, of which he has served 3.5 years and was on bail.
The names of eight-time Ghosi MLA Jagdish Sharma and former BJP MLA Dhruv Bhagat also figured among the accused, as both were the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman of the Bihar assembly during different periods.
However, back in June 1997, the CBI had chargesheeted nine politicians, including Lalu and three-time Bihar CM late Jagannath Mishra. Others included former ministers Chandradeo Prasad Verma, Bhola Ram Toofani, Vidya Sagar Nishad and the then MLA RK Rana. Even though Mishra served jail terms, he was finally acquired in all the cases. He died in August 2019. Barring Lalu, the rest have gone in oblivion.
Right from early 1996, the fodder scam has impacted the fortunes of Lalu and he has reacted to the situation for survival, rather instinctively. First, he split the then Janata Dal on July 5, 1997 and formed RJD, besides installing his wife Rabri Devi as the CM in his place. Yet, despite the fodder scam taint, his mass appeal remained intact and he has continued to remain the central political figure in the state, so much so that political groupings are formed on the pro and anti-Lalu plank.
Lalu’s political decline was also steady, even though the fall was not sudden. For, if the JD had 122 MLAs in the 324-member state assembly in March 1990 when the Lalu formed government with outside support, it increased to 167 MLAs in April 1995 on the basis of his mass pull.
After that, as Nitish Kumar appeared on the scene and also began to claw his hold in the state politics in alliance with BJP as part of the NDA. Lalu’s RJD won 124 seats in 2000 (when first Nitish became CM for seven days, but could not muster support of required number of MLAs to win confidence vote), followed by 75 in February 2005, 54 in November 2005 (when Nitish formed the government on the development plank) and only 22 seats in 2010.
The Lalu-Nitish combine did the trick in 2015, when the grand alliance won 151 of the 243 assembly seats and Nitish formed the government with Lalu’s sons Tejashwi as his deputy and Tej Pratap as a minister. However, after Nitish joined NDA again, the RJD could not win even a single parliamentary seat in 2019.
Yet, in the last 40 years or so, Lalu had become a part of the state’s political mythology. In the winter of 1995-96, before the fodder scam burst, he had charmed the delegates at the “Bihari NRI meet” held at Patna, asking those from the US and UK to invest in the state.
The headline of a Delhi-based newspaper story said: “Lalu bun gaya gentleman”, parodying the Bombay (now Mumbai) flick and Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Raju bun Gaya Gentleman.’ Yet, what is also true is that the multi-crore fodder scam hit the state’s ruling political and bureaucratic establishment under Lalu like a cluster bomb.
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