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Lalu Prasad Yadav (often spelled Laloo) .(Devanagari: लालू प्रसाद य़ादव) (born 1947) is the president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, a political party of India. He is also the Minister for Railways in the United Progressive Alliance government. He has also been Chief Minister of Bihar.He is known for charismatic leadership and mass appeal.This is both matter of research and envy among his opponents .

Background

Lalu Prasad Yadav was born in a poor Yadav family. His father's name is Late Mr. Kundana Raiye. His native place is Phulwaria (district Gopalganj, Bihar). His parents were poor farmers. Despite this, he managed to earn a Master's degree in Political Science. Lalu's first political step was involvement in the elections of the Patna University students union, where he led the student movement inspired by Jai Prakash Narayan in the 1970s.Since then he never looked back and scaled every political and social obstacle with tenacity.

Political career

Lalu came into limelight when he handed over a charter of demands to India's then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, during emergency as a student leader. He was first elected to Lok Sabha in 1977 at the age of 29. Within a short span of 10 years, he became a formidable force and synonym for Bihar state politics. During the 1989 general and state assembly elections, he led the National Front coalition in Bihar to become a major political leader.He was soon elected Chief Minister of Bihar.Bihar was infamous for having many CMs in short span of time before his appointment.He broke this jinx by lasting full term.It was only after his first tenure as CM that his political skills were recognised by his rivals and led to polarisation against him.However his political graph went upswing uninterrupted despite all the efforts put up against him.He stunned the entire world with his performance in following state assembly election by managing majority on his own.His second coming attested his political and tactical skills.His career took a beating only after he was framed as an accused in Fodder Scam.

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

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

In 1996 police unearthed a major corruption scandal (Animal Husbandry Scam/Fodder scam, Rs 950 crore (US$ 267 Million) in Bihar (going back into the previous Congress government) which allegedly involved him and the state's leading bureaucrats and politicians. The fodder scam forced him to resign as chief minister and install his semi-literate wife, Rabri Devi, as 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 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.

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 and khadi for the railway passengers. The logic given was once again that of more rural employment.

In June 2004, he announced 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(which is lesser than during any other ministers tenure). 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(unnecessary comments). 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 would revoke the contract of A H Wheeler & Co, which runs newspaper stands on most Indian railway stations, because they were and English firm. The firm (which was the first to publish Rudyard Kipling) is, however, owned by Indians.

In July 2004, Lalu lobbied the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to declare a Rs. 3225 crore aid 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 itself, by the 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(citation needed). The seven stations in Bihar included Madhepura, Darbhanga, Patna, Kishenganj, Motihari, Araria and another station.

In August 2005, an Indian Railways advertisement in newspapers claimed that Lalu was "A visionary who scripted the financial turnaround of Indian Railways". The ad declared that Indian Railways, which was a loss-making entity in before 2001, had turned into a profit-making entity. However, a report in Mumbai Mirror alleged that it had registered losses running into around Rs. 700 crore

Lalu also "found" 80,000 old C and D grade vacancies in the Railways . The vacancies had existed for over half a decade and Nitish Kumar (his bete noire and his predecessor 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, and announced the implementation of internet based ticketing and reservations. He also annouced plans for open ticketing and a new scheme on upgradation of lower class passengers to a higher class automatically.

Lalu Prasad Yadav is now credited with engineering the fianancial turnaround of Indian Railways, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. Under him, the Railways booked an unprecedented surplus of 110 billion rupees (2.47 billion dollars)

An impressed Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is studying the Indian Railways turnaround story to make it a case study for its students .

Defeat in November 2005 elections

After ruling Bihar for 15 years, in the November 2005 elections, the NDA handed Laloo Yadav a shattering defeat. His party, the RJD managed to win just 54 seats, which put his party in a dismal third place, after the Janata Dal United(JDU) and the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP).

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. 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 Rediff.com news item, Lalu claimed that many foreign embassies and universities like the Harvard have sought his bio-data to know more about him. He said "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." According to the same source, 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(see:Bhurabal) traditionally lorded over the underprivileged classes.

Criticism and Controversy

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

Caste politics

Laloo had once coined the term Bhurabal for a group of people who has got habit of claiming higher origin for no reason.

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 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.

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 and references

1. The official birthdate of Lalu Prasad Yadav is June 11, 1947, but on June 11, 2004 he said that no one knows his actual birthdate; while filling up the forms for his secondary school examination, his brother "calculated his age on the basis of his height" "B'day bash only when communal forces are wiped out: Laloo". Daily Excelsior. Retrieved 2006-05-08.
2. Amita Malik. "Laloo in Wonderland". The Tribune. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
3. "More charges framed against Lalu Yadav". The Tribune. Retrieved 2006-05-08.
4. "Profile: Laloo Prasad Yadav". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-05-08.
5. "Lalu's 'kulhad', a flop in Bihar". The Times of India. May 1, 2005. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
6. "Lalu spares passengers; freight untouched". The Hindu. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
7. "Lalu refuses to be CEO, Railways India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
8. "A.H. Wheeler faces the axe of Lalu's reforms". domain-b.com. July 19, 2004. Retrieved 2006-05-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. "BJP unhappy with Lalu's statement on floods". Rediff.com. July 25, 2004. Retrieved 2006-05-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. "Hum laaye hain toofaan se rail ko nikaal ke (advertisement)" (Press release). The Times of India. August 14, 2005. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. "...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." "News report". Mumbai Mirror. August 14, 2005. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. "Indian Railways announces financial turnaround, new tracks". The News International, Pakistan. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
13. "CEO Lalu set to enter IIM-A classroom". The Econmic Times. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
14. "Lavish praise for Lalu". The Hindu. September 16, 2004. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
15. "World Bank Report : Bihar - Towards a Development Strategy". World Bank. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
16. "Harvard wants my bio-data: Lalu". Rediff.com. September 13, 2004. Retrieved 2006-05-23.

External links

• Profile of Laloo on BBC as of March 2004.
• Interview with Laloo on Asia Times from September 2004
• Laloo Yadav Images
• Ruling ally loses key India poll, BBC article, 22nd Nov, 2005

• 1947 births
• Living people
• Indian politicians