Rebel Rouser It is called stage fright. Ranjan Yadav - now challenging Laloo Yadav as leader of the breakaway Rashtriya Janata Dal (Democratic) - has a long history of displaying his nerves on stage. His right hand has a habit of flapping nervously whenever he lifts it to make a point. On a bad day, he has been known to call off press meets to avoid embarrassment. And in the 11 years that he spent in the Rajya Sabha, he is known to have spoken only once. But even his fiercest critics have noticed a spring in his step in the last few months. And if there is a hint of stage fright every now and then, he is not letting this weakness cow him down. 'It is a fight of principles,' Ranjan Yadav asserts over and over again. As of now, there are enough takers for his 'fight'. At least 12 MLAs have fallen in line with the 51-year-old Yadav, making his cause the biggest revolt in the RJD since the government was formed in 1990. 'I am civil and because of my academic background, a bit cautious in approach to political differences. But civility does not mean surrender,' he says. 'There is no one in the party who can distil the many lines of shop-worn arguments against Laloo into something that feels hard and resonant,' adds Shankar Prasad Tekriwal, Rabri Devi's finance minister who quit the RJD at Ranjan's behest two months ago. The cracks in Ranjan's relationship with Laloo had been visible as far back as 1997. He had got roughed up by his own partymen for raising his voice against the appointment of Kanti Singh as coal minister in the Deve Gowda ministry. Laloo's friend Ranjan, a contender himself, was hurt that Laloo had projected Kanti Singh although she was a political nobody. Ranjan Yadav let that wound fester for three long years. In the meantime he was not quite averse to saying a few things 'off the record' against Laloo. But matters came to a head in December, 2000 when he was accosted by a gang of RJD leaders in Madhubani district. Slippers were hurled at him and he was abused. The reason: He had publicly declared that development had taken a back seat in Laloo Yadav's Bihar. That was it. His dismissal, first from the post of working president and then from the primary membership of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for six years late last month were merely the last rites of this increasingly fragile relationship. It wasn't always quite like this. Laloo had befriended Ranjan in 1974 when both were major figures at the Patna University. This was during the heady days of the social reform movement of Jayprakash Narayan. Ranjan Yadav was a lab demonstrator. The other Yadav, the resident rabble-rouser. Soon they found enough in common to become the best of friends. Ranjan, who had been born into a middle-class family of Patna's Churigali near Nala Road, pursued his academic career even as he participated in social justice movements with Laloo. He completed his post graduation in Geology before becoming a lecturer in Patna University's Geology department in the early eighties. Fascinated by rocks, on which he even based his post-doctoral thesis, Prof. Yadav's flirtations with politics dealt with the rocks of feudalism which divided society. The social chemistry of power should change, he always kept telling the handful of Yadav students who came to higher education at that time. Bihar political folklore has it that a couple of days before the marriage that the bride had some defects in her physical features. Laloo sent Ranjan to Rabri Devi's house to check out the rumours. Ranjan returned to assure Laloo that she had all the features of a very auspicious bride. Even during the height of the Emergency when Laloo was in jail, Ranjan looked after his family. Hounded by the police, Laloo often used to hide at Ranjan's residence. The reciprocity of interests was mutual too up to a point. In the late seventies when Karpoori Thakur was the Bihar chief minister, Laloo often proposed Ranjan's name for a berth in the Assembly Council. 'But every time Mr Yadav would propose his name, Karpoori Thakur would ask who that Ranjan Yadav was and Lalooji would give very good certificates about this man. But for some reason, Ranjan Yadav was never made a council member', recalls Lakhsmi Sahu, secretary to Thakur. But in 1990 when Laloo became chief minister, Ranjan became the party's Rajya Sabha member. This was the beginning of Ranjan's national exposure to politics. Soon he became Laloo's ambassador to the rest of the states and set up the rudiments of an organisational framework which would give the RJD a national identity. Party insiders agree that Ranjan was the key man in setting up RJD units in 22 states after Laloo was sent to jail soon after the formation of the party. His initiatives in the expansion of the party base outside the state and his total control of higher education in Bihar have their share of controversy too. He allegedly handled education in the state as his fiefdom, appointing 'paanwalas and telephone attendants as vice chancellors', as RJD spokesman Shivanand Tiwari would put it. Party leaders are quick to point out how Ranjan made his wife - a lecturer in Allahabad - a senate member of Patna University. Despite all this, Ranjan was the sober face of the rustic politics that Laloo advocated. He increasingly became the thinktank of the social justice brigade organising the investors meet in the early nineties for Bihar's development which led to Laloo going abroad to attract investors. In the last few years Ranjan Yadav also spent a lot of time in building and relaying roads in Patna. The entry to each such road has a sign which says: 'This road was built by Ranjan Yadav with development funds made available to him as Rajya Sabha member'. These roads are his calling card now. Signs that he is really all for the 'development of Bihar'. But there is a lot he has to catch up on. For one he has never been able to dazzle crowds the way Laloo can with his rustic wit. He lacks a mass base and has never won a popular election. Nagmani, Lok Sabha MP from Chatra, Jharkhand who has defected with Ranjan, is quick to rally to his support when questioned on his leader's mass base. 'Tell me, which chief minister enjoys mass popularity before he actually becomes a CM. Take the case of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. Nobody had heard of him till he became the CM, although he was the key man behind NTR's success all along.' He will have to let the masses in Bihar decide on that.