Lalu Held Guilty in Fodder Scam: New Political Equation in Bihar

Bihar politics will never be the same again. In all likelihood, the CBI court would sentence Lalu Yadav for more than two years of imprisonment on 3^rd October. This means Lalu would lose his Lok Sabha seat and would be barred from contesting elections till he is exonerated of the charges by a higher court. Bihar Politics has changed for now.

It is likely that in absence of Lalu from electoral politics, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejasivi would run the affairs of the RJD. The statement of Rabri Devi is significant in this regard. She said yesterday that like Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul run the affairs of the Congress Party she and her son- mother son combine- would run the RJD. Now that Lalu Yadav has been held guilty of embezzlement of funds from the state treasury, neither Sonia Gandhi nor Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is in a position to press for the promulgation of the Ordinance pending before the President.  Pranab Mukherjee has raised certain queries about the justifiability of promulgating the ordinance that goes against the July 10 verdict of the Supreme Court on convicted MPs/MLAs. However, under the Constitutional provisions the President is bound to sign the ordinance if the same is sent to him for the second time. The President so far has not returned the ordinance but has raised certain questions on its validity.

In Bihar, if Rahul Gandhi has his way, he would like to align with Nitish Kumar rather than remain in the company of Lalu Yadav.

This is for the first time in the history of Independent Indian that a sitting Member of Parliament will lose his seat on being convicted of crime by the trial court.

Will this be any deterrent to the criminals in politics from committing crime while being a Member of Parliament or State Legislature? Perhaps, yes.

Here I would like to explain that the Supreme Court judgment delivered on July 10, 2913 is not from retrospective effect. That is, any MP or MLA/MLC who was convicted for crime and sentenced for two years or more imprisonment and if an appeal is pending in higher court, prior to July 10,2013 will not lose his or her seat of the House he or she is elected to. But all the sitting MPs/MLAs/MLCs who are  facing trial in courts and if and when they are sentenced by the trial court for two years or more imprisonment, these Members would lose their seats.

Now where the political base of Lalu Yadav shifts in Bihar? The Yadavas, by and large would remain with the RJD but many of this group of voters may shift to the BJP but not to the Congress or the JD(U). The Muslims also face dilemma. The minority votes in Bihar would swing away from RJD benefit of which will go to the Congress and the JD(U). Lalu’s another alliance partner Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan may break away from the RJD and try to join any front led by the Congress in Bihar.

Now let us recall some of the charges established by the prosecution in the fodder scam. Buffaloes were transported in vehicles with registration numbers that were found to be scooters, oil tankers and auto rickshaws. Similarly hundreds of goats and buffaloes bought from Punjab were shown to have died on way to their destination in undivided Bihar. Hundreds of liters of mustard oil were shown to have been bought and used for sharpening the horns of the animals. More than 900 crores rupees were looted by the politicians and a handful of bureaucrats in Bihar for several years. After the long and winding trial, the law has finally proved that it has a long arm indeed.

~R. K. Sinha