Former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav and wife Ranjeet Ranjan at the house of Congress MLA Asfaq Alam in Patna on Tuesday. As Pappu was released from prison after 12 years, his supporters, including Alam and RJD MLA Dinesh Singh, gathered outside Beur Central Jail to greet him. He was arrested for the 1998 murder of then CPM MLA Ajit Sarkar. The don-turned-politician was convicted in the case in 2003 but was acquitted by Patna High Court, along with two others, on May 17. Pappu said he would continue with the politics of “aam aadmi (common man)”. “I shall first talk to my supporters and then decide on my political future,” said Yadav, adding that he would first take care of his health. He said: “I shall go to Purnea in a few weeks.” In a chequered career since first winning a seat to the Assembly in 1990, Yadav has switched from the Samajwadi Party to the LJP to the RJD, besides supporting former chief minister Lalu Prasad and the NDA government at the Centre, before venturing out independently in the choppy waters of Bihar politics. Text by Dipak Mishra, picture by Deepak Kumar