NEW DELHI, July 20: Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav and Union Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan will be touring Bihar tomorrow for the first time after Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav broke away from the party to form the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) earlier this month.The two senior leaders will be accompanied by former Union Minister Devendra Prasad Yadav, who has turned into a bitter critic of Laloo, ever since he was ousted from the United Front Government apparently at the latter's behest.The Patna High Court is also scheduled to take a decision tomorrow on the anticipatory bail petition filed by Laloo in the fodder scam.Paswan and his party chief are ostensibly visiting Bihar in connection with two railway projects. Ministry sources say that after landing in Patna, Paswan will leave for Sitamarhi to lay the foundation-stone for a broad-gauge line connecting the north Bihar town with Muzaffarpur.Paswan is also scheduled to inaugurate the zonal office of the newly-constituted East-Central Railway at Hajipur. The Hajipur constituency is represented by Paswan in the Lok Sabha. One of the Assembly segments falling in the district, Raghopur, is represented by Laloo in the Bihar Assembly.The JD chief will be the chief guest at both the functions and the Chief Minister figures nowhere in the invitation cards issued by the general manager's office.Among the leaders who have been invited are Devendra Prasad Yadav, Naval Kishore Rai, who represents Sitamarhi in the Lok Sabha, Mohd Obaidullah Khan Azmi, Sukhdeo Paswan, Dinesh Chandra Yadav (all MPs from Bihar) and a host of MLAs and MLCs opposed to Laloo.It is clear that the Sharad camp will utilise the opportunity to test the political waters in Bihar in the aftermath of the latest split in the JD. Observers do not rule out a direct confrontation between the two camps. ``There may be violence in Bihar tomorrow,'' a senior RJD leader said. ``Party supporters may try to foil the plans of the Sharad camp.''The visit has also acquired importance in view of the challenge thrown by Laloo to Paswan to resign and seek re-election from Hajipur. Senior JD MLAs Mangani Lal Mandal and Ganesh Yadav told The Indian Express in Patna today that the visit by the Central leaders is the beginning of a direct attack on Laloo.
