Asset Laloo: Findings and perceptions

India’s Rail Minister Laloo Prasad is a national asset, a recent study conducted by experts has concluded. “He is not just a national asset, he is an international asset,” Vaday Wahachar, the head of the study group, told a news conference. He said the findings have no relation with the disproportionate assets case against Yadav.

Yadav has redefined democracy in the Indian state of Bihar he has been lording over for over 15 years. “He has got a name that even Goerge Bush can pronounce, well almost. He has made democracy strong in Bihar by freeing it out of the clutches of the weak, may the strong men win in the forthcoming one too,” Wahachar said.

“He is an all rounder,” IrbaR Ived, Prof. Wahachar’s deputy, said. “He has acted in movies, he is chairman of Bihar cricket association, he is the de jure railway minister of India, he is de facto chief minister of Bihar, he married his daughter to an IT engineer, he can get kidnapped children released,” Ived told the conference, saying she could not count the man’s qualities on her fingers and her toes were hurting.

“President Bush has been looking for a man like Laloo, who has made his contribution to democracy. The Bush administration, committed to democracy, is happy about the elections in Bihar. Recently the Bush administration held democratic elections in Iraq where nearly half of the population that has survived Mr Bush’s war on Iraq went to vote. They braved bullets and said yes to democracy,” Dab Rahib, the American member on the study team, told reporters.

“We expect the survivors in Bihar to brave bullets and vote. Democracy is important,” he added.

The study’s timing has however created a new controversy. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has said the study may help Laloo’s cause. Laloo Prasad however is unperturbed. It doesn’t matter what the media says about me, good or bad.

“My voters are illiterate and are mostly driven to the polling booth by my people, so they vote for me. It’s about perception. Laloo means loved one and that’s the perception. Some 1,000 people died in Gujarat and Narendra Modi is banished for ever. Double that number died in Bhagalpur under Congress rule, but Congress leads the secular front. Perception it is, no?”