File picture of Lalu Prasad in his cowshed at 1 Aney Marg when he stayed there

Patna, June 3: Lalu Prasad’s bovine fleet seems to have gone into hibernation, just like the master.

Till October 2005, when his spouse Rabri Devi was heading the RJD government, Lalu Prasad had a herd of 210 cows and calves at 1 Aney Marg. The cows were Lalu’s pride — he would show them off to celebrities such as Hema Malini, Rakhi Sawant, Shekhar Suman, V.P. Singh and I.K. Gujral, visiting him on the same premises where chief minister Nitish Kumar now conducts his janata darbar on Mondays.

The cattle count has now dwindled to 68 cows and 40 calves and the herd has been shifted three kilometres away to a sprawling farmhouse off Bailey Road.

The RJD boss still loves to live with his cattle but, unlike in his heydays, he does not take his visitors on a tour of his new khatal (cowshed) anymore.

He does not invite even his close party colleagues to his khatal, spread over about three acres of land. Entry of mediapersons is virtually forbidden in the area.

Even the neighbours are barred a glimpse of the cows, their ubiquitous, state-of-the-art cowshed and the two-storied mansion where the Yadavs stay. Two securitymen stand guard at the khatal’s entrance gate, batons in hand, ready to chase away the intruders.

Sources in the group of veterinary doctors who examine the cows regularly revealed that the RJD boss relaxes in an air-conditioned room on the second floor of his farmhouse whenever he comes to Patna. He also inspects his cows along with the veterinarians and his loyal but apolitical workers. “He lived in his room like a maharaja (emperor), drinking tea made with pure milk and eating curd when he came here in early April,” said a vet compounder.

The security and solitude of Lalu Prasad’s mansion — located 500 metres south off Bailey Road in the Danapur area — makes it resemble that of Osama bin Laden’s house at Abbottabad in Pakistan where the al Qaida chief was killed by US commandos in early May. In the mid-2000s, Lalu and his alliance partner Ram Vilas Paswan often used a man named Khalid Noor, a lookalike of Osama, to attract Muslim voters at public rallies. Khalid grew a long beard, wore a turban and headgear to get that bin Laden look and attract curious eyes.

The high security for the cattle at Lalu Prasad’s house is nothing surprising.

“Khatal ke bare mein kucchh mat puchhiye, yahan se chale jaiye (Don’t inquire anything about the cowshed. Go away),” said the security guard, looking like a pahalwan (wrestler), in his stentorian voice.

“We did not know that the cowshed belonged to Lalu Prasad. Earlier, we knew it belonged to Kanti Singh, a former Union minister and RJD leader. None of us are allowed inside,” said a local resident.

Anwarullah Khan (50), who owns a cowshed — Azad Khatal — barely half-a-kilometre from where Lalu’s bovines reside, refused to speak on the RJD boss’s assets. Talking about the khatal business, Anwarullah said: “Fodder now costs Rs 8 to 10 per kg while the feed costs Rs 18 per kg. One is required to spend somewhere between Rs 100 to 150 per cow to feed them per day. In case a cow falls ill, it breaks the back of the owner for the doctors too have raised their fees.” Anwarul said he too had reduced the number of cows in his khatal, from 65 in the 1990s to only 19 now.

Anwarul pointed out that cow milk was selling at Rs 26 to Rs 28 per kg, making the khatal business a loss-incurring one of late. “I do not know if Laluji owns a khatal and if the number of cows there has diminished sharply. If at all he has a khatal and he is keeping less number of cows, it is because of the diminishing return in the business,” Anwarul explained, showing his horses and dogs that he had been breeding to substitute the cows gradually “in a phased manner”.

Although he never allowed the press to enter his new khatal, Lalu Prasad occasionally took his friends to see the farmhouse till the time he was the railway minister. After the Assembly poll debacle last year, the RJD boss has stopped inviting people to his Patna residence.

The RJD boss still loves to talk about his childhood experiences of riding on the back of buffalos and herding cows, while addressing public meetings. Recently, he asked yoga guru Ramdev to “justify his birth in the Yadav community by selling milk rather than teaching yoga and selling medicine”. But Lalu Prasad seldom shares any details about his current bovine fleet.

Sources revealed that Lalu’s khatal has been supplying milk to a few hotels and restaurants in Patna. But it does not cater to the local residents.