Cbi Decision Sets Off Power Struggle In Janata Dal

The decision of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to chargesheet Bihar Chief Minsiter and Janata Dal (JD) president Laloo Prasad Yadav in the Rs 950-crore animal husbandry scam has set off a fierce power struggle in the party.

Yadav is now facing pressure on two counts - To vacate the party presidents post and step down from the chief ministership - mainly from former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, who has become a new power centre in the party.

Gowda has challenged Yadav for party presidents post in the coming party elections to be held before May 21.

Yadav yesterday refused to resign and said he would fight it out in the court. This has, however, not stopped his party colleague and Union railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan from saying that an individuals opinion did not matter and the party would collectively decide Yadavs fate.

Laloo bashers in the party are quick to remind of the times when the JD had asked S R Bommai to step down as party president when his name came up in the Jain hawala scandal. Bommai obliged and Laloo Prasad took over from him, though Bommai was never chargesheeted in the case.

Pressures from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, the Samata Party, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Left parties are going to come in handy for Gowda and his group to bring pressure on Yadav to quit.

Gowda is actively being supported in this by Paswan, Union parliamentary affairs minister Srikant Jena and former food minister D P Yadav, who was dropped from the I K Gujral cabinet, allegedly at Yadavs insistence.

Party insiders say that if Yadav goes, he would try to have at least his man in the Chief Ministers chair. He would also want his man to replace him as the party president.