This conviction has made 2013 a more momentous year for Bihar than it already was. In mid-June a 17-year-old alliance broke and rendered old friends bitter foes — Nitish Kumar threw out the BJP on the Narendra Modi issue and cast a dare whose first test will come in the ensuing general elections. Now, a 17-year-old scandal has been capped with a verdict that has turned the dice anew in the electoral stakes. “The future trajectory of Bihar politics will depend on several factors,” Shaibal Gupta of the Patna-based Asian Research Development Institute (ADRI) told The Telegraph. “But of course, this is going to impact politics hugely. For one thing, the subaltern brand of Lalu Prasad had become dissipated as he had gone into the lap of antediluvian forces.”

Among the factors Gupta enumerated were the period of Lalu’s sentence, the question of succession in the RJD and the future course of the Congress, which has been seen in Bihar as aligned to Lalu’s tainted image.

The quantum of sentence, to be spelt out on October 3, will probably be critical, but more to Lalu’s personal future as an active politician. Should he be sentenced to more than three years or thereabouts, a return to the electoral arena will prove tough for the 65-year-old RJD boss. But even if he gets away with a slighter sentence, the political damage to his image already stands done. In the prevailing national mood, few political parties are likely see in Lalu anything but the burden of a liability.

The Congress, whose vice-president dramatically torpedoed any hopes of a reprieve Lalu may have entertained, has not gone beyond cryptic comment on the verdict itself but it is unlikely the party will hover anywhere near the shadow of its current ally and supporter in the Lok Sabha. As one senior Congressman said: “The signal emerging from Rahul Gandhi’s intervention on the controversial ordinance is very clear and everybody should be able to read the meaning of it, especially in the context of Bihar. There is no formal decision but the writing is on the wall, no alliance with Lalu.”

Would that mean it is looking to ally with Nitish? Would Nitish himself want such an alliance? That remains a story of ifs and buts, although come-hither noises have been made by both sides in recent months. The UPA government has been generous to administrative demands Nitish has made; Nitish, in turn, announced issue-based support to the UPA soon after parting ways with the BJP and backed, among other things, the food security bill. Nitish has even gone to the extent of saying publicly that should the UPA government grant special category status to Bihar, “we will show how grateful we are”.

Lalu’s attentions, though, will be focused at the moment on how he keeps his flock together from behind bars. Several of his partymen, including a few senior legislators, are restive and could be looking to explore other options. Who he picks to run the day-to-day affairs of the RJD in his absence will be of critical importance in how united the party remains hereon. Lalu has been pushing his son and preferred successor, Tejaswi, to the political foreground but with limited success. Tejaswi has displayed none of his father’s famed charisma on stage; backstage he has proved a poor political manager. He has failed to either inspire the party ranks or bring senior leaders like Raghuvansh Prasad, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Jagadanand Singh on board. “Many of these leaders may not be prepared any longer to work under Tejaswi or even his mother, Rabri Devi,” a senior RJD leader said.

Who Lalu will eventually pick — the makeshift head is likely to be titled “working president” while Lalu himself remains chief arbiter of RJD affairs — is mute, but should he keep the party a closely held family concern, he may have renewed dissension on his hand.

There was a time not so long ago in Bihar, Lalu was the master of all he surveyed, imperial of demeanour, invincible of stature. This morning, as the verdict was pronounced in Ranchi’s special court, all that escaped his rattled self was: “Arre, yeh kya ho gaya! Oh, what’s happened?” What had happened was only justice playing out.