DNA Edit: Toxic harvest

Comeuppance sometimes is long in the coming, but it does have an uncanny habit of catching up with one. The fodder scam, a 21-year-old case of systemised accounts bungling within the Bihar administration, has claimed the former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav as its first big catch. Just to be clear, this is not the first time that the senior politician from Bihar has been convicted in one of the fodder-scam related cases. His conviction would have come sooner had it not been for the Jharkhand High Court, which in 2014, had put a stay on trial of all fodder-scam related cases. Thankfully, this stay was upended by the Supreme Court in May this year, with the stricture that the trial must be completed within nine months. Naturally, Lalu’s legal team will be knocking at the altar of the High Court for an immediate bail, but the odds are stacked against him: The law does not look kindly on individuals who have already been convicted in a case.

Meanwhile, Lalu has been playing to the political gallery with his victim card. Craftily, he has been trying to pass off his conviction as an assault by the BJP on the forward march of the backward classes. Accusing them of playing “dirty politics”, Lalu, in his tweets, has (sneakily) put himself on the same pedestal as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Dr BR Ambedkar. Only the most indoctrinated of RJD follower will lap up this bunkum willingly. For the millions in Bihar, Lalu stands as a motif of times where corruption, bribery and “jungle raj” was commonplace. His imprint on Bihar, or for that matter national politics, has been one marked by political opportunism and unqualified abuse of power. If Bihar can be credited with taking a stride towards progress, the commendation for it lies with the current CM Nitish Kumar’s interrupted stints as chief minister since 2005.

Politically, this verdict could dent UPA’s prospects in Bihar in 2019. In case the towering leader remains incarcerated, RJD’s and UPA’s public outreach effort could possibly take a toll allowing the JD(U)-BJP to corner a larger share of the electoral pie. Alternatively, if Lalu does not secure bail, it could also unleash a wave of sympathy in his and his party’s favour. The RJD is very well aware of it and that explains the state-wide tour that Lalu’s son Tejaswi Yadav will be launching from mid-January. Their target will be to extend the voter base of the party from beyond the Yadav-Muslim caste dynamic by projecting Lalu’s arrest as a setback for the backward classes.

While the political logic underpinning this strategy seems foolproof, chances are that the people of Bihar, including the members of the backward classes, might see through this rather simplistic marketing. Post 2014, politics shows us that if it was ever possible to prevail on India and make it deliver a decisive mandate, it can be accomplished via a promise of inclusive development and all-round prosperity. What has transpired is definitely a body blow to the RJD chief.