Since the past few days, we have been hearing a lot about the kingmakers but the public has rendered them valueless pawns. I am afraid what Lalu, Ramvilas Paswan and Nitish Kumar will do now, as they are left with no job. They had been doing quite well in the media recently and earned a lot of media space. Surely this will continue for a few more days. This time, however, it will not be for a good reason that they will be in news. Rather, this time, it will be purely out of sympathy.

Ramvilas Pasvan was thus far running the Ministry of Steel and Fertilisers like his private ownership. Similar was the case with Lalu. Now, they will have to run from street to square for at least three years, jobless and without media attention. Till the next Assembly elections in Bihar, the kingmaker duo can play chess, because they will still have spare time after meditation and brainstorming sessions over their defeat in Bihar.

Lalu is now a government-less, ministry-less, and relative-less, creature (since Sadhu etc were cunning enough to leave him). I have a suggestion for him. He can open a Charvaha School in Patliputra where he can revise his election management lessons. He can ask for help from his associates from the Railway Ministry, who had projected him as a media guru.

There is one more regional Satrap from Bihar – Nitish Kumar. He must surely be thinking about the words he spoke in the last few days. He was asking for special status for Bihar in lieu of his support (although this was practically more an offer of special status for himself). Had he opted to go with the UPA and put some restrictions on his words and actions, (including a famous handshake with Narendra Modi), he might have been the happiest man today. Like Lalu, he too missed the train. Lalu may have been well bestowed by the UPA had he not dumped the Congress in the Bihar coalition. Even this act could have been ignored, but he was to dig his own grave later by an uncontrolled outpour of words. He may regret that now and may find some place in the new government, but surely he has no ethical right to claim it. Similar is the story with Paswan and Nitish.

This whole situation may end up in the political death of bargaining in Bihar. For the first time in the history of democratic India, Bihar will have no say in central politics. Surely no rail will run through Bihar, nor will any other ministry, and all thanks to the outspoken Bihar leadership.

Bihar will be the real loser, the one state that is in grave urgency of development. Nitish Kumar may have some ways to console himself, but that will not be enough for the people of Bihar who have often been embarrassed by their political leadership. The leaders of Bihar have only a long tongue and demagogy to their credit, which in turn have ruined the state over the years. It will be wrong to say that they weren’t given any opportunity; they got more than they deserved, but they didn’t use it for the people’s welfare. Rather, they used it for their personal gains.

Now the time has come when these leaders should understand the people’s demands. Lalu and Paswan should especially use their time for strengthening themselves with the people’s support. The defeat they have faced should be treated as an opportunity to reconsolidate their positions; otherwise they will be lost in the pages of history as many of the signs of the world’s oldest democracy.