Click to play videoMuzaffarpur: In spite of his poor health 78-year-old George Fernandes is fighting Lok Sabha elections from Muzaffarpur in Bihar as an Independent.
But the firebrand Fernandes is not his old self and seems lost and isolated in the election battlefield.
During his heydays he brought the entire Indian railways to a grinding halt, threw out Coke and IBM from India in the 1970s, led trade union movement for decades.
But the firebrand socialist, who later allied with the BJP and was defence minister during the Kargil war, is now alone in his political battle.
Dumped by the Janata Dal (United), the party he built, Fernandes is now looking lonely and lost in the heat and dust of campaigning in Muzaffarpur.
For a man who has been MP nine times, he now needs all the support he can to find his way back.
"It is nice that all of you are with me. I feel very happy that all of you have come to hear me," Fernandes says addressing an election rally.
Ill now for several months, Fernandes is unable to communicate even with those whose votes he has come to ask for during his campaign.
"He is physically ill but not mentally. His mind is still sharp," a local resident Ashok Dev says.
But the battle for Fernandes is an uphill one with just a handful of supporters tailing him.
He will need more than the few hands he has to win Lok Sabha elections even though his supporters try to keep up the appearances, letting their leader take a few stumblings steps without support in front of the media's cameras.
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