Amidst the salad of sounds and colours that speckle the poll season in Bihar, an essential accompaniment makes its absence felt keenly—humour that issues forth from the soil and, like petrichor, overwhelms the senses. Bihar misses the inimitable, and irrepressible, Laloo Prasad Yadav.
The maverick RJD boss, known for his quick rapport with crowds at election rallies that he sustains with sharp one-liners soaked in laughs, has been cooling his heels at a Ranchi hospital after being convicted in multiple fodder scam cases. It was Laloo who had bestowed the famous moniker of ‘mausam vaigyanik (weatherman)’ on Ram Vilas Paswan, for his uncanny knack to switch over to winning alliances just in the nick of time, and had lobbed the sobriquet of “Paltoo Ram” at CM Nitish Kumar for his constant political somersaults. Used to such potent drollery over the years, no wonder the crowds have been missing him.
Nothing, alas, can’t change that. On April 30, the Supreme Court turned down Laloo’s bail petition, dealing a blow...
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