Lalu citadel plans silent revenge

The rugged roads leading further inside the rural wastelands in Danapur have turned into busy pathways on poll eve. 

With campaign vehicles frequenting the area, potholes have grown deeper. And people's resentment against the underdevelopment has also deepened.

This long-time bastion of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who represented the Danapur Assembly seat twice in 1995 and 2000, seems to have grown impatient with rising crime and corruption.

Situated on the fringes of the crime-prone state capital, furious whispers over recent kidnappings are heard here too. Local shopkeepers are trading with fear.

If law and order is a problem here, so is the lack of basic amenities. There isn't ample water for the fields, or safe marketplaces for trade to bloom.

Farm labourers are also paid well below the stipulated minimum wages.

In such a bleak scenario, one would expect the people to be aggressively vocal about their difficulties. But the undercurrent against incumbent RJD MLA and candidate MLA Ramanand Yadav in the Yadav-dominated Danapur Assembly segment doesn't seem to be seething enough.

Though the residents find him "inaccessible", they justify his "rare" visits to the constituency with his stature.