The election to the House of Elders was never a child's play. But the ensuing Rajya Sabha poll this year has exposed many chinks in major political parties' armour.

If Laloo Prasad Yadav had to face the wrath of his close associate Shivanand Tiwary for 'dumping' him in the midst of poll, Nitish Kumar too drew flak from his trusted aides for ignoring the claims of those who stood by him through thick and thin, and instead rewarding those who had hobnobbed with the RJD but crossed the fence for greener pastures. Even LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan is in the eye of storm, who in a bid to get surplus votes of CPI-ML for his nominee Ranjan Yadav, has made a political harakiri by writing to the ML leader about the need to keep equidistance from the Congress as well as the RJD.

But first thing first.

Laloo Yadav, enjoying the brute majority for the last one and a half decade, had helped many of the non-Biharis enter the Parliament through the back door. And topping the list was former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who despite being a Rajya Sabha member did little or virtually nothing for the State he represented. Neither as an MP nor as the PM. Similar was the case with Congress leaders RK Dhawan and Kapil Sibal, who never thought of 'repaying the debt' to the State through their MPLAD schemes. To top it all, even Laloo Yadav, as the Rajya Sabha MP, has been charged with zero utility rate of his MPLAD fund. This came to light when a Parliament committee submitted a report in July 2003 that at least two MPs from Bihar (Laloo and Vashishtha Narayan Singh) had not spent a single penny out of their Rs 2 crore annual grant.

But then, what has development to do with the RS election? Following the similar trend, Laloo had promised another outsider Ram Jethmalani a Rajya Sabha berth. But he put his promise in abeyance when he found that his proposal was facing stiff opposition from his rank and file. Leading the pack was Shivanand Tiwary, who was himself a strong contender for RS berth. Having failed to achieve his goal, he shot off a strong worded letter to Laloo: " Abhi tak apne kismet ki roti khayi hai. Kabhi karm ki nahin. (You have so far reaped a rich harvest of luck, but never been rewarded for hard work). Don't try to humiliate persons like me who has never missed any opportunity in defending you from your opponents' onslaught".

The Rajya Sabha election has brought to fore the simmering discontent within the JD (U) too. If George Fernandes wanted an RS seat for his confidante, Jaya Jaitley, Nitish not only rejected her candidature, but instead propped up a candidate, Mahendra Sahni, who, incidentally, had contested the 2004 Lok Sabha election against George from Muzaffarpur as an RJD nominee. For Nitish, enemy's enemy could be friend.

But the mother of all surprise was the nomination of King Mahendra, the sitting RJD MP, as the JD (U) candidate for the Rajya Sabha. The (s)election of the 'King', who had the rare distinction of entering the Parliament as a Lok Sabha member (from 1980 to 1984), a nominated member of Rajya Sabha (1994 to 2000) and RJD Rajya Sabha MP (now suspended from the party) from 2000 to 2006, has caused heart burns among many an aspirant within the NDA. The BJP wanted the seat for its Muslim mukhauta Shahnawaz Hussain, who was used (during polls) and abused (after polls) by the party, when he lost out the race for deputy Chief Ministership to Sushil Modi. The BJP top brass cited the case of Jharkhand, where it had helped the JD (U) candidate Digvijay Singh romp home through the transfer of their additional votes. But no logic or poll arithmetic could develop a new chemistry between the two allies.

Forced to eat a humble pie, the saffron party had to remain content with a single seat for its spokesperson and former union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

For LJP's Ranjan Yadav, who had to bite the dust during the last RS poll, it would have been a cakewalk this time, had the RJD's second nominee, Rajniti Prasad, a lightweight, not thrown his hat in the ring. Short of the mandatory 35 first preference votes, Ram Vilas Paswan has urged the CPI-ML to extend the party's support for his trusted lieutenant. And in return, the LJP chief has 'mortgaged' his promise to help form a third front, by keeping equidistance from the Congress and the RJD. A tall order from a man, who misses no opportunity in demonstrating his allegiance to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi. But then, didn't someone say "In politics, there are no permanent friends and foes."

Watch this space for more, as leaders start counting their chickens before they are hatched on March 29.