Laloo Prasad: Makeover

New Delhi, Aug. 6: Laloo Prasad Yadav, Union minister.

With the formidable change in his bio-data has come a subtle attempt at an image makeover. The railway minister’s profile now highlights that:

• Ever since he took over as railway minister, more than a hundred foreign missions in India sent for his bio-data to study the man. Among them were mostly countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America

• The BBC (on the eve of the new millennium) termed him the second highest talked about political and social leader after the mighty President of the USA (Bill Clinton)

• The London School of Economics dubbed him a messiah of the poor and the right kind of leader for any third world country

• The Harvard University School of Social Sciences has researched about the minister and sees him as a harbinger of ultimate good in the form of social security, personal dignity of the common man.

These gems bid to modify Laloo Prasad’s rustic, earthy image — revered by some, but ridiculed by others.

Though the socialist, son-of-the-soil flavour seemed to have been reinforced by the kulhar (earthen pot for tea) revolution, sources close to Laloo Prasad said he is adapting to the hi-tech age. Gone are the days when he derided the computer, saying it would not feed his people.

Now, he stuns his aides by advocating the use of CD-ROMs. “Since we get 72-80 pages of clippings everyday in Hindi and English alone related to Laloo Yadav, he suggested that they be spiral-bound and presented to him. When we told him there would be hundreds of such files and become unmanageable, the minister said the reports be stored in CD-ROMs, ” said an official.

Of late, Laloo Prasad has become sensitive to media reports. Sipping his morning cuppa at his 25, Tughlak Road residence, he scans all the dailies, first Hindi, then English. At work, he goes through newspaper clippings concerning his ministry, his party and himself everyday.

In a bold move, Laloo Prasad agreed to implement a proposal to computerise freight and parcel bookings to stop corrupt practices. For the last eight years, the suggestion was kept under wraps as it would render about 1.7 lakh staff jobless.