Laloo's henchmen threaten to repeat Madhepura/Patna in Hajipur
Tara Shankar Sahay, lately in Patna
Madhepura, the Rashtriya Janata Dal cadres promise, was just a dress rehearsal -- the real thing is in Hajipur.
In Madhepura, massive rigging and booth capturing compelled the Election Commission --with some prompting from Laloo Prasad Yadav's rival candidate, JD party chief Sharad Yadav -- to institute an inquiry which is likely to result in repolling.
;Sun le, sun le aai zamana, Ram Vilas ko hai harana
The RJD war-cry is unambiguous -- Ram Vilas Paswan, the JD candidate in Hajipur, has to be defeated, by whatever means it takes.
Paswan himself appears to take the threat lightly -- but apprehension is the mood of the moment among his supporters. "You have seen what Laloo has done all over Bihar," says Chhote Lal, who runs a sweet shop bang opposite the Hajipur police station. "I fear Laloo and his hordes will create chaos here as well."
Paswan, exuding confidence, waves a lordly hand at the hordes of youth milling around him and says, "Look at this sea of people, when I have them backing me, what reason do I have to worry?"
That mindset, say locals who have seen it all before, is a bit naive. His young supporters seem to agree -- several of them tell me that they have been importuning Paswan to take all possible precautions.
The situation is even more worrying given the rather strange behaviour of the Election Commission. Despite booth capturing being carried out, despite over two score deaths in poll violence, Chief Election Commissioner Dr M S Gill insisted that polls in Bihar were "largely peaceful". It was only on Friday that the Commission finally countermanded the poll in Patna.
More intriguingly, the central security forces and paramilitary outfits deployed in the state were left to remain inactive. Thus, the deputy inspector general in charge of the Central Industrial Security Force in Patna said that till the last moment, the state government did not issue any instructions about what he was to do with his troops on the day of the polling.
Senior officials maintain that as per indications on February 16, the husband-wife duo of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Chief Minister Rabri Devi were determined to neutralise the central forces and thus facilitate wholesale rigging.
The state police for its part is openly allied with Laloo and his RJD. Thus, Patna DSP Raj Kumar Yadav, who has never made any secret of his pro-Laloo bent, spent February 16 touring the polling booths in the state capital, openly supervising the forcible confiscation of ballot boxes from the anti-Laloo territories. Meanwhile, Rabri Devi's brothers Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Yadav fired in the air, at Sheikhpura, to scare away voters standing in line to exercise their franchise.
What was shocking was the blatant openness of the whole process. Thus, three girls, all plainly in their early teens, sat comfortably on trestle tables within the booth, systematically stamping hundreds of ballot papers in the RJD's favour while a smiling posse of local cops gave them protective cover.
Chief electoral officer A K Basu has, it is learnt, forwarded a whole fileful of documented cases of electoral malpractices to the EC. The Commission has ordered that the Patna DSP and other senior officials be transferred out of the city. The state government has also issued orders for Sadhu Yadav's arrest.
Hajipur, RJD activists openly boast, is going to be many times worse than Madhepura and Patna.
What lends an explosive edge to the developing scenario is that in recent days, bands of Paswan followers are going around the constituency, openly threatening to either retaliate with violence, or commit self-immolation, at the first sign of rigging by the RJD.
The EC, judging by the evidence on the ground, is going to have its hands full ensuring anything like a free, fair election in the key constituency.
EARLIER REPORT:
Laloo plans to ruin Paswan
Elections '98
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