Search for bigger political leader

Regional parties love to have a national presence and the RJD is no different. The party has a national office in New Delhi. The building was constructed at the time RJD chief Lalu Prasad was the railway minister and the party had a respectable presence at both the Centre and the state. MPs and MLAs were asked to contribute to the construction and the building was named Rabri Sadan, after Rabri Devi. owever, since then, the RJD has lost its status as a national party and has suffered its worst-ever defeat in the Assembly polls. Leaders are now questioning why the party headquarters at Delhi is still named after the former chief minister, who lost from both the Assembly seats she contested. “The JD (U) is also proposing to construct its headquarters in Delhi. But they are going to name it after socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia. Our party is still stuck with family matters,” grumbled a senior party leader who stressed that the RJD chief should seriously consider renaming the head office on some great leader of the past.

Inter-party scapegoat

The Congress meet to introspect on the party’s humiliating defeat in the Assembly polls was held at Sadaqat Ashram in three phases recently. The “findings” of the party left several leaders amused. “The party held poor Lalu Prasad guilty for its defeat, saying the people did not want to return to the Lalu-era and therefore voted for the NDA. The leaders at the meet said the Congress was not able to convince the people that it would not ally with Lalu Prasad after the polls. It is a strange logic,” said a senior leader, pointing out that weak organisational structure and lack of mass leaders found casual references. The leader said that Lalu was clueless about his party’s disastrous show at the Assembly polls.

Caught in confusion

Cop-turned-MLA Som Prakash was recently called to the mahurat of a documentary on one of the most well-known names in the field of science — Jagadish Chandra Bose. The MLA, however, did not know what Bose was famous for and had not even heard his name. “You cannot blame Som Prakash. He had been fighting criminals for 16 years before he joined politics. But the seasoned politicians, who attend events, should know the subject they are speaking on,” said a former minister. In the 1980s, he recalled, a minister was the chief guest at a poets’ meet. “The minister praised a poet referring to the writer as she. He was reminded gently by another poet that the poet was not a she but a he,” said the minister.

Invitation tiff

After Columbia Business School, another prestigious US institution — Yale University — is said to have invited chief minister Nitish Kumar to deliver a lecture. The JD (U) leaders are ecstatic even after Nitish ducked the Columbia invitation. “Nitish Kumar has beaten RJD chief Lalu Prasad in the number of foreign universities that have invited him. Lalu received invitation only from Harvard,” said a JD (U) leader. Incidentally, Lalu’s invitation from IIM-Ahmedabad had resulted in a war of words between the NDA and the RJD. The NDA leaders had declared if Lalu was such a management guru, why couldn’t he do anything for Bihar?