Last night, a powerful halogen lamp near the entrance lit up the entire BJP office. Upbeat party leaders and workers sailed in and out, savouring victory. Next door, the RJD office was a picture of gloom and desolation.

All the lamps on the office lawns were out. And though the lights in the rooms of party office-bearers were on, they were so dim that one could hardly see them from the road. There were no leaders and none of the crowd that usually hangs around there.

The road outside -- Birchand Patel Marg -- was almost dark. That's not new, as more than half the streets of Patna are always dark. According to one estimate, Patna requires about 6,000 electric bulbs for its roads, but the municipal corporation does not have funds to provide half of them.

Surprisingly, even Anne Marg, where the Chief Minister's residence is situated, was dark and desolate. A few yards away, outside the closed gate of the Raj Bhavan, RJD supporters sat in a dharna, blasting Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari for the ``rape of democracy''.

When Bhandari returned from New Delhi this morning, the change in scenario was palpable. At the airport, there were bureaucrats welcoming him with bouquets. As he drove to Raj Bhavan, he noticed, presumably with great satisfaction, a different Bihar bandh.

Although shops, offices and educational institutions were closed, cycle and autorickshaws plied freely and in large numbers. More significantly, there was little of the tension that usually marks an RJD-sponsored bandh.

Policemen who usually look the other way in times of trouble were a changed lot. At several places in the city, they were seen beating up RJD workers for creating trouble.

Bhandari went a step further. He drove through parts of the city, accompanied by Director-General of Police K A Jacob, to Rajendra Nagar to attend a function to honour poet Dinkar. Holding his head high, the Governor looked on, as a handful of RJD workers showed him black flags but did little else. ``He ignored the demonstration totally,'' said one Raj Bhavan official.

The talk in political circles here is that RJD activists were reined in from creating terror on the streets by none other than Laloo Yadav himself. He sent word from New Delhi that the Governor must not be given another handle to beat the state government with. So, while the RJD MLAs and their allies pilloried the Governor and demanded his recall in an Assembly resolution and shouted slogans against the ``Atal-Advani-Bhandari conspiracy'' outside the Assembly, they were almost invisible on the streets.

The real reason for the rather quiet reaction seems to lie in the confusion that the issue of Vananchal has created across the rank and file of almost all parties. The two big political strokes have come simultaneously. The threat to the Rabri Devi Government has followed the threat of Bihar's bifurcation.

Emotionally, the state seems to be already divided. Today's bandh call hardly had an effect in south Bihar where Vananchal, and not the survival of the RJD government, is the people's concern. Whether or not the next few days and weeks see parties, particularly the BJP, engaging in horse-trading for an alternative government, South Bihar will have no political agenda but the separate State of Vananchal.

And, the other parts of Bihar -- north and central -- will chart out its future political course as a reaction to Vananchal.

Naturally, RJD leaders, who passed an Assembly resolution last weekend opposing the new state, harp on the deep division of Bihar's politics and society. State BJP president Nand Kishore Yadav and general secretary Sarju Rai were at pains to argue that there was no such thing. However, the division showed up in the Assembly today when the House discussed the floods in north Bihar and the drought in the south.