As electioneering slowly picks up momentum, one thing that the voters hugely miss this time is the absence of RJD chief Lalu Prasad from the poll scene. He is currently serving prison term in a Ranchi jail in the fodder scam which abruptly ended his career in electoral politics.
Though he was out of poll arena after being disqualified from contesting elections in view of his conviction in the fodder scam in 2013, Lalu Prasad had continued lighting up the poll scene through witty remarks, rustic mannerisms and his ability to connect with the masses.
While top leaders struggled to rattle out statistics and figures to convince how Bihar sunk under the RJD regime, Prasad himself was enough to turn the tide in his favour with his stocks of desi adages which he loved to use in plenty while addressing the masses. These adages not only conveyed his messages easily to the masses but also left the weary-looking audience in splits. As such, many came to attend his rallies just to drive away fatigue of routine domestic works and returned homes debating how Prasad entertained them.
“Chak dole chak bambam dole, khaira-peepal kabhi na dole (everyone around him can change but he can’t since his root is as deeper as khair and peepal trees),” remained one of the most-used country sayings that he repeatedly used to target his rivals. What he meant by saying this was that several parties ganged up against him but had failed to do any harm to his party’s support base. It’s another meaning was that many of his political rivals had changed political loyalties but he had continued to fight for secular forces, without caring about his fate.
The very remark becomes clearer with a tweet of Tejahswi Yadav, Prasad’s younger son, which goes like this: “Agar Laluji BJP se haath mila lete to aaj Hindustan ke Raja Harishchandra hote. Tathakathit chara ghotala do minute mein bhia-chara ghota ho jata agar Laluji ka DNA badal jata (Lalu Prasad would have emerged as another King Harishchandra of India and the alleged fodder scam would suddenly disappeared from the scene if he joined hands with the BJP).”
Prasad used yet another remark at his rallies: “Hathi pade panki mein, siyar mare huchuki (jackals enjoy when an elephants gets caught in the mud)”. In his absence, the election campaign is being launched by Tejashwi, the lone big star campaigner in the party.