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| March 13, 2000 | ||
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 Cats,
they say, have nine lives. Indian politicians have many more, and of them
Laloo Prasad Yadav has the most. Just when everyone wrote him off -- for
the nth time -- he's risen again. His strength diminished to 124 from 163
(of 324 seats), this is his weakest performance, but he's still head of
the largest party in the Bihar Assembly. For the last decade, this earthy
regional satrap has lorded over Bihar, surviving two assembly and four Lok
Sabha elections, fodder and other scams, tax raids, political isolation --
and a dying state. There is nothing to dispute here: already miserable
Bihar set dismal new records in underachievement under Laloo. Everything
from per capita income to the electricity situation has worsened. Bihar
has the dubious distinction of being the only state to show a negative
growth rate over the last two years, bettered even by its poor,
cyclone-battered neighbour, Orissa. Laloo's continuing electoral
performance seems to defy all conventional wisdom that bad governance
begets: defeat at the hustings. This most colourful of India's politicians
has featured on six India Today covers, a record for any regional leader.
This time we probe the secret of his survival against all odds. To do the seventh cover story on Laloo, we sent to Patna Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta and Associate Editor Farzand Ahmed, who's covered Bihar for India today for the past 20 years. They joined Principal Correspondent Sanjay Kumar Jha to bring you a story that tells you how Laloo manages to get votes without really doing anything for his electorate, how he operates. Says Dasgupta: "To understand Laloo you have to understand Bihar. Laloo could only exist in Bihar." Obviously, they were made for each other. .
(Aroon Purie) |
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