Lal Hemendra Pratap Sahi prepares lunch for himself at the MLA guesthouse. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Nov. 10: A simple fare of rice, dal and aloo ka chokha, all cooked by him in between turning over the pages of Maxim Gorky’s Mother.

A healthy menu for the man who is going to be Jharkhand’s next health minister, though not all consider Lal Hemendra Pratap Sahi’s presence in the Madhu Koda cabinet healthy for the state.

Inducted into the cabinet as the 12th, and final, member, his entry has raised eyebrows as he is perceived to be keeping the slot warm for his son, jailed legislator Bhanu Pratap Sahi.

The 72-year-old minister, who had been an MLA of the Socialist Party from 1969 to 1972 but had since disappeared into political oblivion, was still unaware what portfolios he had been allotted when The Telegraph caught up with him in room number 28 of the Assembly’s guest house this morning.

“My natural choice is energy so that I can provide electricity to all nondescript villages, but it is Koda’s prerogative what responsibility he wants to give me. I am ready to accept that,” said the minister, who is known as “Dehati”.

As it turned out, Sahi Senior didn’t get energy. But he has to have the energy to manage what he has got: besides health he has to juggle with family and welfare, medical education, labour, employment and training.

The new role has given him renewed vigour. With a flourish of a youthful politician, Sahi Senior threw a challenge to Arjun Munda, saying he was ready to take on the former chief minister on his home turf if Munda had the guts to vacate his seat of Kharsawan. “I am ready to fight the NDA in its strongest fortress,” he says.

Sahi Senior already has his hands full, though. An average day begins at 5 in the morning, when after yoga and morning walk, he has a simple breakfast of biscuits and sattu (grinded gram). “Since many years, I have been cooking food for me and my family members, if they are with me. I essentially wash all the dishes. I prepare very good non-vegetarian dishes,” said “Dehati”, disclosing his weakness for mutton, chicken and meat of other animals hunted from the forests of Palamau.

Yet to be allotted a house from the ministerial quota, for “Dehati” the comfortable mattress of room 28 offers little solace. “It is for my friends and guests that I am here. Otherwise I spent most of the time, essentially nights, at a room allotted to the Purva Vidhayak Vichar Mancha of which I am the general secretary,” he says.

Will he change his house after getting one from the ministerial quota? “I will live here. The new house would be for my guards, officers and attendants. Why should I change my lifestyle,” says the man who believes in a spartan lifestyle.

“Dehati” has been living alone at the room of the Purva Vidhayak Vichar Manch for the last four years. His wife stays with a niece at Dhurwa.

Sahi Senior is upset with the current crop of politicians. ”There is a huge difference in the political thinking of the past and the present. Much has to be improved in the current scenario. Today’s MLAs lack certain qualities necessary to be a good politician and social servant,” he says.

For son Bhanu, his youngest, “Dehati” has an advice or two. “He reacts to adverse situations emotionally, which causes problems. He should change this,” says the proud father, who is sure that his son was “framed” by the earlier regime.

As any doting father believes, the son can do no wrong. And therefore, there is no harm in keeping the seat warm for him.