Lalu Prasad

Patna, June 5: In the absence of their boss Lalu Prasad, beleaguered RJD leaders and workers — barely 150 of them — today staged a dharna at Kargil Chowk near the Gandhi Maidan which had, at least, five lakh people to hear Jaiprakash Narayan giving a call for “Total Revolution” on the same day in 1974.

JP, as the Lok Nayak was known as, had described the Total Revolution as the instrument to “change the system”. JP’s voice spread like wildfire across the country, eventually ending the Indira Gandhi-led Congress rule at the Centre in 1977.

The RJD boss, chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy, Sushil Kumar Modi, constituted the main component of the five-lakh-strong crowd that Jaiprakash Narayan addressed on June 5, 1974.

Today, the RJD organised the dharna to protest against the state government’s “failure” to ensure drinking water and power supply to the people and check corruption in the bureaucracy.

Asked why Lalu did not turn up despite the RJD announcing about his arrival, the party general secretary, Ramkripal Yadav, said: “We are observing the Total Revolution Day on his (Lalu’s) instructions. The RJD is organising it at the district levels. Laluji will come when we will organise the state-level dharna.”

The senior party leader and the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, appeared bereft of proper explanation for Lalu’s absence. “It (Lalu’s absence) is the internal matter of the party. We are doing our work.”

If the RJD boss, probably for the first time in his long political career, ignored the Total Revolution Day function here, chief minister Nitish Kumar, too, did not find it worth to take notice of the RJD dharna.

With a wry smile on his lips, the chief minister parried the question on the RJD’s programme.

Governor Devanand Konwar, Nitish, Modi and JD (U) general secretary Shivanand Tiwary garlanded JP’s life-size statue at the southern end of the Gandhi Maidan. Then, Nitish addressed a function on the World Environment Day dwelling at length on how it was important to plant and protect trees while preferring not to speak a word on the RJD and its dharna.

While the RJD leaders ensconced in an ordinarily built pandal, Nitish left for Dharhara — a village in Bhagalpur district — which has a unique tradition of planting at least five trees at the birth of a girl child.

Nitish planted a tree and opened an unit of Kilkari, his favourite scheme aimed at promoting talent among the minor students belonging to poor families.

The last public meeting that the RJD boss addressed in Patna was on January 24 — the birth anniversary of Karpoori Thakur, the mentor of Lalu, Nitish and several other leaders. Lalu had a bitter experience at that meeting with dissension erupting in his party on the dais. Senior leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh left the function midway.

A JD (U) worker remarked that Lalu might not have come fearing poor response to his party’s programme and differences cropping up again in his party.