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Chastened Laloo to contest two seats this time

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

Once bitten, twice shy. Humiliated in the Yadav stronghold of Madhepura in October last year, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad is leaving nothing to chance and has decided to contest two seats in next month's assembly election.

The second list released by the party names the former chief minister as a candidate in Raghopur segment of Hajipur parliamentary constituency. Like Danapur, this constituency has a sizeable Yadav population. In the 1995 assembly election too, Laloo Prasad had contested and won both Danapur and Raghopur, retaining the Raghopur seat till March 1998 when he entered the Lok Sabha trouncing his estranged colleague Sharad Yadav in Madhepura.

But the election this time has a different meaning for Laloo Prasad. While in 1995 he had contested two seats for fear of the elections being countermanded by then chief election commissioner T N Seshan, this time he is doing so because he does not want to take any more risks.

In October, when he had contested the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat, some people had suggested that Laloo Prasad contest another seat as well, but the overconfident RJD president ignored the advice.

The RJD's second list of 94 candidates has a couple of other surprises. For example, tribal leader Dhruv Bhagat, whose name figures in the animal husbandry scam, has been given the party ticket from Raj Mahal.

Bhagat, a member of the outgoing assembly, was a senior politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party who was suspended after being named in the scam. He was also arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation. He quit the party last year and joined the RJD, accusing top BJP politicians of making him a scapegoat.

Another surprise inclusion is of Girdhari Lal Yadav, who was suspended from the RJD after the 1999 parliamentary election because he contested as a rebel from the Banka constituency, which he had represented between 1996 and 1998. But Laloo Prasad gave the ticket to Koeri leader Shakuni Chaudhary, who had defected from the Samata Party.

Though both Girdhari Lal and Chaudhary lost to Union Minister of State for Railways Digvijay Singh, the former emerged as a force to reckon with as he pushed the RJD into third place and ended as the runner-up. Laloo Prasad was thus left with no choice but to accommodate him this time.

Girdhari Lal is now the party's candidate for the Katoria assembly seat, which is currently represented by Bhola Rai. Rai and Jawaid Eqbal Ansari, minister of state for minority welfare in the Rabri Devi government, both campaigned vigorously against Girdhari Lal in the 1999 election. This time both of them have been denied tickets.

Two other ministers to be denied tickets are Building Construction Minister Basant Singh and Minister of State for Sugarcane Ram Lakhan Mahto. Both have since quit the RJD.

Meanwhile, state Janata Dal (United) general secretary Mangini Lal Mandal resigned from his post in protest against the denial of a ticket to him by the party. Mandal was among the first ministers in the Laloo Prasad government to raise the banner of revolt against the chief minister at the height of the fodder scam. He now accuses the JD-U leadership, especially Union Telecommunication Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, of ignoring grassroot workers in favour of his family members.

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