Why Rabri Devi will find it hard to lead RJD while Lalu's in jail

Tejaswi Yadav, 24, was part bluster and part strategy when he spoke to a crush of television crews outside a special courtroom in Ranchi where his father Lalu Prasad was convicted in the fodder scam on Monday. “It’s a conspiracy," he said, before promising that the party would reply to the naysayers within the party and the aforesaid conspiring rivals at the polls. It was a brave attempt by the former cricketer who spent a few seasons on the benches of the Delhi Daredevils IPL team, but it convinced nobody. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) founded by Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was sent to jail on Monday in connection with the 17-year-old fodder scam, has all of 22 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly and four Parliamentarians from among Bihar’s 40. [caption id=“attachment_114552” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] She has been CM as well as Leader of Opposition. AFP[/caption] But tell RJD leaders that and the prepared response is the same – Lalu was in jail earlier and his wife Rabri Devi was not only positioned as a rubber-stamp chief minister of Bihar in his absence but went on to win an election with the party actually emerging stronger. Indeed, it was the rustic homemaker-turned-politician Rabri Devi who made better television headlines than her politically ambitious son. She likened her own leadership, along with that of Tejasvi, to the Sonia-Rahul team at the helm of affairs in the Congress party. She has no qualms about dynastic rule in politics, she has said that in her plain style when quizzed about her nomination to the upper house of the Bihar legislature after a humiliating defeat in not one but two constituencies, Raghopur and Sonepur — both touted as the RJD’s fortresses – in the 2010 Assembly polls in Bihar. “Why not?” was what she asked journalists who had questions about the Lalu family in politics. She’d like to introduce all her children, including her daughters, into politics, she added. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, a very different beast now than it was in 1997 when Lalu went to jail leaving Rabri to don the mantle of chief minister, may not agree with her views. Rabri has been in semi retirement, politically speaking, having withdrawn from party affairs after the embarrassment of the last Assembly polls. She was nominated by the party into the Vidhan Sabha as a member of the legislative council but she has not been terribly active. The children she’d like to see in the shoes of Rahul Gandhi haven’t cut their political teeth yet. Tejaswi, being called the heir apparent though he’s the younger son, is plain inexperienced. Tej Pratap, 25, is more low-profile, a member of the Patna Flying Club with a liking for motorbikes. He owns a motorbike showroom in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad, unimaginatively named LaRa – not after the cricketer, but after Lalu and Rabri. Rabri may lack the political vision to assist the RJD in to making the stunning comeback it needs to retain political relevance in Bihar, but she certainly had some crowd-pleasing moves. When Lalu was railway minister, he reportedly nudged work on a specific section of North Eastern Railway, demanding that it be executed in record time. That line would eventually connect his ancestral village Phulwaria with that of Rabri’s, Salar Kalan. Rabri was seen as the key mover of that project. Though she’s been lying low, she came into her own unexpectedly during the early part of the decade. In fact, Lalu himself said once that he barely has time to speak to Rabri , in a sidelong reference to her individual style. Despite her untrained speech – she called Nitish Kumar a thief during campaigning for the 2010 Assembly polls – and an absent political vision, what works to Rabri’s advantage is that she has been both CM as well as Leader of the Opposition in Bihar. She is acquainted with the Bihar political leadership in a way her sons are not. There is a certain acceptability of Rabri as leader of the RJD, everyone agrees. That may not be true of the sons. The RJD party has four MPs, including one former minister. None of them is seen as a natural leader, but there’s also no way to quell whispers in the party that it’s time for Lalu’s family to take a bow and let other party leaders, including senior former Janata Dal leaders, run the show. Patna university professor and political commentator Prof Nawal Kishore Chaudhary told The Hindu that the leadership crisis is a grave one for the party that is already depleted, even dismissing the so-called backing for Rabri and sons as a façade. “In private talks, RJD leaders have themselves said it is time for Mr. Lalu and Ms. Rabri Devi to go. They are not going to accept Ms. Rabri Devi or anyone from the family as a leader. Furthermore, the people will not accept her. Bihar has moved on. If the RJD put up Mr. Prasad’s family member there will be a rebellion in the party,” the report said. An India Today report says there could be a middle-path – let the convicted Lalu remain party president while in jail, while party affairs are run by a 15-member core team led by former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. The report says: “Lalu Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi can be accepted; but she cannot lead. Tejaswi can; but he will not be accepted. Being acutely aware of the problem, Lalu Prasad has followed a middle path wherein he will remain as party’s national president even after losing his Lok Sabha membership following this conviction. RJD senior Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has been asked to lead a party’s 15-member core group. For the time being; Tejaswi has been placed next in the pecking order."  If Rabri indeed picks up the gauntlet, she has an unenviable task ahead – the RJD’s core votebase of Muslims and Yadavs, the famed ‘M-Y’ combination, is pulling in either direction away from the RJD. The Muslims are gravitating towards a Congress that appears to be cozying up to Nitish. And the Yadavs are appearing increasingly pro-Narendra Modi. Rabri alone, or Rabri with her sons and without the active support of the weary RJD, may find it difficult to counter that.