Alarmed at continuous protests during Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s state-wide yatra, authorities have decided to beef up security around the venue where Mr Kumar will be holding his meeting. The chief minister is currently on “review yatra” but continuous protests during his rallies have become a matter of serious concern for the authorities tasked with his security.

Mr Kumar is scheduled to hold meeting at Ara in Bhojpur district on Saturday. The local administration has decided to deploy as many as 3,000 police force and some 250 magistrates in the area.

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CCTV cameras will also be installed to identify possible trouble-makers and prevent them from creating scenes at his meeting. Further, the people coming to attend his rally will have to pass through a three-tier security process which includes undergoing metal-detector test. “Anyone trying to obstruct the meeting will be sternly dealt with,” sub-divisional magistrate Kumar Pankaj told the media today.

The development comes after a youth rushed to the dais of the chief minister during a meeting in Begusarai last week and reportedly hurled his black muffler at the CM. The youth was soon arrested by the security personnel. Ten officials entrusted with the CM’s security were immediately suspended.

The chief minister has been facing constant protests from various quarters right since he embarked on his yatra on 12 December last month. Especially the contractual teachers demanding “equal pay for equal work” and contractual nurses pressing for the same have been routinely protesting. The local villagers too have joined the protests over lack of various facilities in their areas.

Although the chief minister claims to have undertaken the yatra to review development works, the Opposition say it is primarily aimed at inviting the masses to join state government’s human chain programme against dowry and child marriages, and make it a success. The government faces the biggest challenge to make it s success since the RJD is not a coalition partner of the JD-U.

Last year, once such human chain programme against alcoholism had turned out to be a grand success as a huge number of RJD workers had joined it.