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Lalu Prasad Yadav (Devanagari:लालू पृसाद य़ादव) (earlier spelt by media as Laloo Prasad Yadav) (officially born on 1947-06-11) is the president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal political party of India. He is often referred to as Lalu. As of September 2005, he is the Minister for Railways in the Manmohan Singh government. Formerly, he was also the Chief Minister of Bihar.

Lalu is one of the most controversial figures in India. Some consider him as the messiah of the poor and downtrodden, while many others consider him one of the most corrupt politicians of India. Lalu is often ridiculed and parodied for his rustic and somewhat comic mannerisms. Lalu is the most parodied politicians in India. Many parody artists mimic his rustic Bihari accent.

Early days

Lalu was born to Late Kundan Rai at Phulwaria, Distt. Gopalganj (Bihar). Lalu first political step was involvement in the elections of the Patna University students union. Later he joined the student movement led by Jai Prakash Narayan in the 1970s. Lalu is an arts graduate.

Political Career

Laloo is one of India's most famous politicians and is a formidable force in Indian state of Bihar, which his Rashtriya Janata Dal has governed for the past 15 years.

Positions Held

• 1977: Elected to 6th Lok Sabha at the age of 29.
• 1980-1989 Member, Legislative Assembly (two terms) of Bihar.
• 1989: Becomes the leader of Opposition, Bihar Legislative Assembly, Chairman, Pustakalaya Committee, Convenor, Committee on Public Undertakings, Re-elected to 9th Lok Sabha (2nd term)
• 1990-1995 Member, Bihar Legislative Council
• 1990-1997 Chief Minister, Bihar
• 1995-1998 Member, Bihar Legislative Assembly
• 1996: Lalu's name springs up in a major scam
• 1997: parts with the Janata Dal and forms Rashtriya Janata Dal.
• 1998 Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (3rd term)
• 1998-1999 Member, General Purposes Committee, Committee on Home Affairs and its Sub Committee on Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension Scheme, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
• 2004 Re-elected to the 13th Lok Sabha (4th term).Appointed as Cabinet Minister looking after the Ministry of Railways. In 2004, he was elected to the Lok Sabha with his party emerging as a key ally of the Congress.

Career Highlights

Laloo Yadav ordered the arrest of L K Advani during the rath yatra on october 23 1990 at Samastipur.

In 1996 police unearthed a big corruption scandal (Animal Husbandry Scam/Fodder scam) in Bihar (going back into the previous Congress government) which allegedly involved him and the state's leading bureaucrats and politicians. His appeal is based on the mass mobilisation of the lower caste Hindu and Muslim votes, and is regarded as the champion of social justice . The fodder scam forced him to resign as chief minister and his wife, Rabri Devi, became his successor. He formed the Rashtriya Janata Dal in 1997, after breaking away from the Janata Dal.

Railway minister in UPA Government

Lalu was elected to the 14th Lok Sabha from Chhapra and Madhepura seats of Bihar. He was made the railway minister in the UPA Government. Later, he gave the up the Madhepura seat. The NDA opposed his inclusion in the cabinet, saying that he was a "tainted minister" because of the criminal charges against him. Interestingly, in August, 2004 Lalu said that he would support a law against tainted ministers.

Soon after becoming the railway minister, Lalu banned the plastic cups (for serving tea) at the railway stations and announced that they will be replaced be kulhads (earthen cups). He said that this will generate more rural employment. Some newspapers later reported that few rural people were getting employment due to the use of kulhads; instead, there were industrialists interested in mechanized production of kulhads. Later, he also said that he had plans to introduce buttermilk for the railway passengers. The logic given was once again that of more rural employment. Soon after this, the Khadi Board approached Laloo asking him to promote the use of khadi bedsheets and blankets in trains.

In June 2004, he anounced that he will travel by railway trains so that he can get a first-hand experience of the problems faced by the Indian public. He once inspected the Patna railway station at midnight, although there were no reports of him travelling by trains. On August 10, 2004 Lalu undertook a surprise check at Rail Bhavan in New Delhi. He deducted the salaries of about 500 latecomer employees and sent them back. On August 16, 2004, Lalu carried out a surprise check on a goods train coming from Mumbai at Danapur station. He found that weights of consignments were under-assessed, leading to loss of revenue for Railways. He claimed that railway officials, transporters and consignees were part of a racket.

During Lalu's tenure as the railway minister, many rail mishapes and crimes took place. To check the crimes, he planned to introduce joint patrolling by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP).

On July 7, 2004, Lalu presented his first railway budget. His budget speech was boycotted by NDA, because they considered him a "tainted" minister. Lalu didn't increase fares. He announced new trains, many of them passing through Bihar. He also offered free second class travel for central governmental job-seeking travelers. Making a faux pas, he said that he will eliminate AH Wheeler & Co., as they "are English". Actually the company which was the first to publish Rudyard Kipling) is fully owned by Indians.

In July 2004, Lalu's antics forced the financed minister P. Chidambaram to declare a Rs. 3225 crore economic package for Bihar.

On July 13, 2004, Lalu announced an inquiry into the Godhra incident, in which several Vishva Hindu Parishad members were allegedly burnt alive by Muslims in a compartment of the Sabarmati express. The move was seen as a political vendetta against BJP. In September 2004, BJP accused Lalu of influencing the inquiry.

On July 24, 2004, Lalu remarked casually that floods provided Bihar's poor people enough fish to eat. The BJP severly criticized him for making such a "shameless" statement.

In August, 2005, just before the assembly polls in Bihar, Lalu promised model railway stations, gauge conversion works and employment in Railways. Lalus's list of railway stations to be developed as "model stations" included 7 stations from Bihar and only 2 from the rest of India. The seven stations in Bihar included Madhepura, Darbhanga, Patna, Kishenganj, Motihari, Araria and another station. Lalu also "found" 80,000 old C and D grade vacancies in the Railways to lure the voters. The vacancies had existed for over half a decade and Nitish Kumar (his bete noire and his preceder in the Railway Ministry) had also referred them to lure voters during earlier parliamentary elections. However, Nitish Kumar didn't last as Railway Minister for long, as National Democratic Alliance failed to return to power. Apart from this, Lalu cut the general and second class fare by one rupee. He also made annouceed that E-ticketing has been implemented. He also annouced plans for open ticketing and a new scheme on upgradation of lower class passengers to a higher class automatically. On August 14, 2005, Railways' advertisements appeared in newspapers like Times of India (Hum laaye hain toofaan se rail ko nikaal ke). The advertisement claimed that Lalu was "A visionary who scripted the financial turnaround of Indian Railways". The ad gave a comparision of Railways's financial situation in 2001 and 2005 and claimed that Indian Railways, which was a loss-making entity in 2001, had turned into a profit-making entity. However, on the same day, Mumbai Mirror reported: "...A supreme irony is while Lalu looks for more avenues to milk railways in the run up to the Bihar polls, his department has registered losses on parcel running into around Rs. 700 crore."

Lalu's Praise

Lalu is considered by many as the saviour of the lower castes and the Muslims in Bihar. His admirers hail him as a secular leader and a promoter of social justice. Like his fellow casteman Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, Lalu has a Muslim-Yadav (MY) vote bank, with the rest of the backward castes being "boggies" to the "MY" train.

Lalu has been criticized for not having done much to alleviate poverty in Bihar. He once said - "Swarg nahin diya, lekin swar to diya." (I did not give them paradise, but I did give them voice). The World Bank once lauded his party for its work in the 1990s on the economic front.

According to a report at Rediff News (Harvard wants my bio-data: Lalu, September 13, 2004 08:31 IST), Lalu claimed "Many foreign embassies and universities like the Harvard have sought my bio-data to know more and more about me. I have come to know that the sociology department of Harvard University is doing a research on me. Though my rivals dub me as 'joker and a clown', the world wants to know who this person is and how he rose from a humble background to this height." Lalu's aids claim that more than 100 missions have sought his bio-data and asked questions about him because they are curious about Lalu’s rise in a near-feudal state like Bihar where the upper caste traditionally lorded over the underprivileged classes.

Lalu's criticism

Lalu's is criticized mainly for three things - his use of caste-politics, his support to anti-social elements and corruption.

Caste politics

Lalu has been winning elections in Bihar by luring so-called "lower-caste" people, the Yadavs and the Muslims. While he claims that he is doing everything for the upliftment for the weaker sections of the society, his critics accuse him of dividing the people on the basis of the caste.

Support for anti-social elements

Many of MPs belonging to Lalu's party (RJD) have criminal charges against them. The most notorious is the Siwan MP Mohammed Shahabuddin. Many of Lalu's own party members including Gopalganj MP Sadhu Yadav (brother of Lalu's brother-in-law Subhash Yadav) had asked him to sever ties with Shahbuddin.

Corruption

Lalu has been charged with corruption cases, the most famous being the "Fodder scam". In the Fodder Scam, the funds meant for cattle fodder were diverted from the animal husbandry department. Lalu was the main accused in multi-million rupee scam. After corruption charges compelled Lalu to step down as chief minister of Bihar, he made his illiterate wife Rabri Devi the chief minister.

From 1997 to 2001, Lalu was sent to jail five times. Lalu was first sent to "jail" (actually Bihar Military Police guest house, Patna) on July 30, 1997 for 134 days. On October 28, 1998, he was again sent to the same guest house for 73 days. When the Supreme Court of India took exception to his guest house stay, he was shifted to the Beur jail in Patna. He was again sent to jail for 11 days on April 5, 2000, in a disproportionate assets case. He surrendered along with his wife, Rabri Devi, and was sent to the Beur Jail. Once Again for fodder scam, Lalu was imprisoned for a day in Beur jail on November 28, 2000. On November 26, 2001, he was again sent to the jail, in a case related to the Fodder scam. Lalu accused NDA of creating a conspiracy against him.

On October 1, 2004 the Supreme Court of India served a notice to Lalu and Rabri Devi on fodder scam. This was in response to a petition, which alleged that they have been interfering with the investigation.

Personal life

Lalu married Rabri Devi (who also held the post of Bihar's Chief Minister) in 1973 and has two sons and seven daughters. His eldest daughter is Misa Bharati. Subhash Yadav is Lalu's brother-in-law.

In September 2004, Lalu's three daughters were in news for slapping a photographer in Kerala, who was hired by local party workers and allegedly got too close to Lalu's daughters.

Acting stint

Lalu did a cameo in a Bollywood movie titled Padamshree Laloo Prasad Yadav in 2004. The movie starred Sunil Shetty and Johnny Lever among others.

Footnotes

1. Earlier, media used to spell Lalu as Laloo. In June, 2004, Lalu clarified that his name should be spelt as Lalu and not Laloo. Few railway ministry officials said that Lalu's political adversaries were responsible for promoting the mis-spelling, as "Laloo" can be translated as "The Loo".

2. June 11, 1947 is the official birthdate of Lalu, but on June 11, 2004 he said that no one knows his actual birthdate, as he was born to very poor parents.

External links

• Profile of Laloo on BBC as of March 2004.
• Laloo Prasad Yadav in various disguises
• Interview with Laloo on Asia Times from September 2004
• Laloo Yadav Images

• 1947 births
• Indian politicians