Lalu Prasad Yadav - Birsa Munda Jail Inmate

You can love Lalu, you can hate him - but you cannot ignore him.

For those who don't or cant delve deep into the murky world of Bihar politics, Lalu was a fascinating figure. The ultimate kingmaker.

Many in the nation held an aversion to Lalu during the scam days, his belligerent ways, his "I am above all laws in Bihar" attitude - and similarly many more had more or less replaced those images of him with those of a "successful minister", a kindly outspoken avuncular person, someone who understood the grassroots, family values. Especially when it became known he was not becoming the PM in the near future.

Lalu playing holi in dhoti, Lalu cooking for his family, Lalu in HBR and Lalu spouting truly secular values somehow managed to outweigh in the public's mind the very audacity and volume of the fodder scam. Of course in recent times the audacity of the multi thousand crore mining and 2G scams have somehow dwarfed the few crores Lalu apparently pocketed. But Lalu can be said to be the original Godfather who didnt care about how far and how deep he looted the nation without remorse or shame. A fact which he tried to mute later with a change of image and an able bureaucratic backup.


As the shutters come down on the fifteen year old fodder scam - we the hoi polloi wonder - will we see more justice and get better deliverence from the rabid politicians who rule us? It took a revengeful Deve Gowda who wanted to squash his king maker to ensure CBI registered the scam. So will this very system of unholy democracy ensure the politicians biting each other and giving each other up - to ensure deliverance for the common people? Maybe this venal politics will serve a better purpose than a squib of a jan lokpal bill! Again that means - a different party has to come to power every few years to trip up the corrupt in the previous regime.

Anything...to help us poor countrymen.

Even though Lalu is still the most fascinating and loved of all.