Lalooji, unless you 'take', how can you 'pay'? Laloo Prasad is a unique politician. During the Bihar movement days, I admired him greatly on principles. But principles mattered then. Today, I admire him for his native skills, although that is sans principles.

He is a great communicator, particularly with the ordinary people. He couldn't care less for the English media of Delhi. This, actually, makes me admire him even more. The entire political spectrum is terrified of the dozen or so English papers in Delhi. But Laloo is not. That is one side. But there is another.

Laloo is always in the News, though mostly for the wrong reasons. Now he is in the News for distributing cash, yes hard cash, to his voters in Bihar. He knows as much as anyone else that Bihar is going to polls in two months.

In fact, he has sought elections on a single day in Bihar. He knows, just as every politician does, that money helps to win elections. He has openly displayed the role of money now, so that his voters look up to him and his party for money everywhere.

He did not do it secretly. He did it openly. In full view of the national television media, so that the nation could view it and the nation did view it repeatedly.

For the first time, a politician, that too a Central Minister, holding a sheaf of currency notes and distributing to the people who would be voters in the elections. The scene was a relief from the otherwise boring politics.

But Laloo is no fool to have done it openly. He has at one stroke ensured that the money he gives to his party-men to be distributed to the voters is not pocketed by them. Now his voters themselves will ask his party-men where their money is. What a strategy?

So, what the Government cannot do to ensure fair and unfailing distribution of its grants to the people, Laloo has done by televising his own distribution. And yet, someone, his deputy in the party, explains that it is for buying 'mithai' (sweets). And he too is a minister. So Laloo may have a few lessons for those struggling to win elections.

A stunned BJP rushes to the Election Commission. Asks the EC to proceed against Laloo and also de-register his party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, of which Laloo's family has virtual proprietary control. The EC, in turn, asks its official in Bihar to register an FIR against Laloo for bribing the voters. Poor Congress. It has no choice. It has to support Laloo and it does unreservedly.

Now, the matter goes to Manmohan Singh, a decent soul. What can he do? He too has to support him, if his Government is to survive. So the stage is set for a confrontation between the ruling alliance and the opposition alliance. The forthcoming Bihar poll only adds to the confrontation.

But Laloo has one advantage, again unique. He is the 'only hope' for secularism in Bihar. So, most of the English newspapers in Delhi have no option but to support Laloo, even though he treats them with disdain. Laloo talks to his voters in Bhojpuri and Maithili, local dialects, not even in Hindi.

English papers do not sell where his voters are located. So Laloo does not need these papers. But they need Laloo as the protector of secularism not just in Bihar but elsewhere too. So, barring a couple of them in Delhi, no one has written any editorial or article critical of Laloo or commending the EC.

See Laloo's defence, knowing that he will have no problem with the media. "Thank God, I was only caught giving money, not receiving it. I was doing it openly, not secretly.''

But Lalooji, unless you 'receive' cash secretly wherefrom did you pay openly? That is the issue. That is the question that the media will not ask Laloo. Why? It is Laloo. Imagine if it was Narendra Modi who wanted his Gujarati voters to eat mithai and paid them? What would the media have not done? That is the difference.