Picked up, nurtured and then dumped by AJSU

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Friday, December 12, 2008

He was picked, fondled and finally dumped in the political bin. And with this ended the brief political career of Prahalad Singh Munda, who had nourished an ambition to contest the Tamar by-election as an AJSU candidate.

After a two-month-long sustained media hype the AJSU finally came to realize that this scion of the slain JD (U) MLA of Tamar Ramesh Singh Munda could not be a suitable candidate to take on his stepmother Vasundhara Munda because he was underage. Realization finally dawned upon the young leadership of AJSU spearheaded by its president and former State Home Minister Sudesh Kumar Mahto that Munda by any stretch of imagination could not be fielded in Tamar.

At a time when junior Munda was inducted in the AJSU the senior party leaders dropped hints of his being the probable party candidate. Accordingly the media both electronic and print accorded him a good printing and digital space.

Till then the boy who was living in obscurity, with the only tagline attached to him that he was the son of Ramesh Singh Munda, hogged the limelight of media and political discourse. But he was robbed off his royalty when the AJSU leadership came to know that he was a student of Intermediate Science and was short of minimum age to contest the Assembly election.

What prompted AJSU president Sudesh Mahto and his political coterie to affect a big political bang by projecting the junior Munda against his stepmother was guided by a single logic _ the boy would be able translate a portion of sympathy wave into vote in his favour _ which was running high after the murder of the JD (U) MLA at the hands of Naxal groups in the month of July.

The poll managers and the thinktank of AJSU visualised a clear cut victory with the above dynamics that besides the cadre vote of the AJSU Munda would be able to win away some of the cadre base of the JD (U). Adding further in it the AJSU was very much hopeful about a sharp division of sympathy vote between him and his stepmother besides the sizeable presence of 37 per cent Mahto vote in Tamar_ the number was enough to shove the party to victory.

Well-placed sources in the party said that the feud within the family of the slain MLA was another reason which promoted the AJSU to net in Prahalad. He is the elder son of the late Ramesh from his first wife (who was abandoned after he married Vasundhara) and the AJSU perhaps believed it would be able to project him as the only political heir of Ramesh Singh Munda and not his wife.

Now the AJSU has finally fielded Vijay Singh Manki as the party candidate and is fighting shy on Munda being given unnecessary projection.

Explaining the party position Sudesh said: "He being the son of a late MLA deserves such a welcome but the party was in no mood to project him as a candidate. He is underage and an undergraduate. How can he be fielded in the election?"

But when asked about the two-month-long sustained media and political hype which the party carefully crafted? Sudesh goes blank.