Early years: Winds of change
Lalu took to politics as a Patna University student, and was part of Jayaprakash Narayan's students movement. He won his first Lok Sabha election from Chapra in north Bihar in 1977, became Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly in 1989 and, a year later, became the Bihar chief minister, heading a Janata Dal government.
In the early days of power, Lalu the rustic was like a whiff of fresh air.
As journalist Sankarshan Thakur wrote in his book The Making of Laloo Yadav: The Unmaking of Bihar, 'No chief minister of Bihar has ever held court under a tree by the roadside. No chief minister of Bihar has ever held a cabinet meeting on the lines of a village chaupal, on a cement platform under open skies. No chief minister of Bihar has ever summoned the state's high and mighty to the streets of the Patna Veterinary College compound and turned their dismissal into a public spectacle. No chief minister of Bihar has raided liquor shops, hawaldar-like, and cancelling their licences on the spot. No chief minister of Bihar has stood in line with the hoi polloi at the Patna Medical College Hospital to get his fever-ridden son treated.'
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