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Sonia stands to lose quite a bit

We journalists are supposedly a cynical lot who diligently rake up every field for a stray gram of muck. So I suppose I am in serious danger of falling out with the rest of the fraternity since I have been writing about nothing but good news for two straight weeks.

Last week it was Anil Kumble's perfect ten; today it is the fact that Bihar has finally been relieved of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav and his clan.

Good news? Yes, you would have to be either nuts or a member of the erstwhile Third Front to protest against the imposition of President's rule in that much-harried state. People who say that the situation is no worse than in other states are talking nonsense. In which other state capital is there a reported case of rape every single day? (God alone knows how many go unreported).

Laloo Yadav says the Rabri Devi ministry was thrown out because he was trying to work for the poor. Oh really? The years of his administration (if you can call it that!) witnessed such gross financial mismanagement that Bihar's repayment of principal and interest exceeds its borrowing by a whopping Rs 43.82 billion. Who do you think is going to be saddled with that debt -- Bihar's destitute or Laloo Yadav and his cronies?

As for the upliftment of the dalits and adivasis, well forget it. City-bred Indians, meaning a hefty chunk of the media, were content to swallow that rubbish about upper-caste Hindus, the cream of the brahminical order, oppressing those at the bottom of the pecking order. But anyone who is familiar with the ground reality knows that the dalits's chief persecutors are the so-called other backward castes, in other words the Rashtriya Janata Dal's vote bank.

Laloo Yadav was so unconcerned about the dalits and adivasis that more than Rs 500 million of central funds meant for them is still unutilised.

These uncomfortable facts may be brushed aside by whatever remains of the Third Front -- the aged Jyoti Basu is now forced to defend the same man who was drummed out of the Third Front in 1997.

The Left Front, after all, didn't manage to win a single seat from Bihar in the Lok Sabha polls. But is it quite that simple for the Congress, a party that still has visions of regaining its old status as an organisation that can govern India without need of coalition partners?

Bihar is central to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's plans. It is, after all, second only to Uttar Pradesh in the numbers game, with 54 representatives in the Lok Sabha. But which way will the Congress swing?

In former Congress president Sitaram Kesri's day that question would never have been asked. After the Janata Dal split in 1997, it was the Congress that bailed out the Laloo Yadav ministry. This was done over the objections of the more farsighted members of the Congress, especially those in the Bihar unit.

The Congress tilt towards the Rashtriya Janata Dal continued even after Sonia Gandhi pushed Kesri aside. When Congress Working Committee member Rajesh Pilot ventured to make some mild criticism, he was publicly rebuffed by Sonia Gandhi. She had apparently decided that she required the Laloo Yadav voters to make a serious bid for Delhi.

She probably still thinks that way. But the problem is that Laloo Yadav repels voters as much as he attracts them. Throwing in the Congress with the Rashtriya Janata Dal might mean alienating whatever little remains of the Congress's vote bank.

They couldn't do so earlier perhaps, but today the Bharatiya Janata Party-Samata Party alliance offers a real alternative. It wouldn't take much to convince those voters that the Congress was letting them down.

Some of the hotheads in the Congress will be severely tempted to embarrass the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry. They will get a chance when the government asks the Rajya Sabha to ratify the decision to impose President's rule in Bihar.

The ruling coalition doesn't have a majority in the Upper House and requires the Congress's support. And there is always a possibility that Parliament will refuse to follow the government's lead. (This, by the way, is why the Bihar assembly hasn't been dissolved, but only kept in suspended animation; no responsible government can do otherwise after the Supreme Court ruling in the Bommai case.)

But Sonia Gandhi stands to lose quite a bit either way. If she backs Laloo Yadav she stands to lose the votes of the rest of Bihar. If she doesn't, then she ends up on the same side of the fence as the BJP. Which way will she jump?

T V R Shenoy