Internal differences within the ruling partners of Bihar’s “Mahagathbandhan” has surfaced over the recent Katihar firing and lathi charge on Bihar school teacher aspirants and spurt in crimes including rape of a minor girl in Begusarai.
The two main partners – Left and the Congress – were more vocal on these issues, but the government hardly took note of it despite a series of their statements in the media. Neither Chief Minister Nitish Kumar nor the concerned minister responded to their queries. The chief minister also holds the portfolio of home ministry.
The CPI-ML has sought judicial probe into the Katihar firing. Although the Katihar district administration denied that the police firing was the cause of the death of two youngsters earlier this week, the duo died during the police firing at Barsoi in the Katihar district when the locals had gathered outside the office of electricity department on July 26,.
The villagers were protesting against the high power tariff, erratic supply of power and perpetual low voltage issue.
Currently, dozens of districts in Bihar are now facing drought-like situation due to scant rainfall. Thousands of farmers are facing acute power crisis and are unable to irrigate their agricultural fields due to erratic and low-voltage power supply.
In addition, the recent statement of Bihar’s Power Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav added fuel to the fire by defending the action of state police. “If people misbehave, they will be punished,” he said.
The leader of CPI-ML legislature party in the state assembly Mehboob Alam, who is MLA from Katihar’s Barsoi assembly seat, has already demanded the sacking of sub-divisional magistrate. “The magistrate was furthering the BJP agenda in the region in order to create disturbances in the area,” Alam MLA alleged.
Another CPIML Leader Sudama Prasad, who recently headed a fact-finding team of the party which visited the place of occurrence at Barsoi has demanded a high-level judicial inquiry into the incident of July 26.
The fact-finding team met the family members of the two deceased youths, one of whom did not take part in the demonstration. He had gone there to fetch his elder brother who is undergoing treatment at Siliguri hospital, in neighbouring West Bengal.
The CPIML team, which has 12 MLAs in Bihar assembly, has demanded that the government should immediately improve the power supply and also take up the issue of high power tariff.
The party also criticised the minister’s statement in which he defended the excessive use of police force. Such a statement has made an embarrassing situation for alliance partners.
Lakhs of teacher aspirants are sore over allowing outside aspirants to apply in Bihar. Despite assurances CM has not sought a date for appointment . Another CPI-ML MLA from Paliganj Sandeep Saurav personally met the CM and deputy CM for requesting them to meet a delegation of teachers aspirants.
The discreet silence adopted by the CM on these issues has put the alliance partners in a fix. “We are unable to say anything in this situation,” said one of the leaders of the alliance partners.
The state Congress president has already requested Nitish Kumar for cabinet expansion. In fact, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also made a request to the CM during his recent visit to Patna. But till date nothing has happened.
The main Opposition party in Bihar the BJP has already dubbed the CM as “General Nitish Dyer” over the Katihar firing. LJP (Ram Vilas) MP Chirag Paswan on Sunday called Bihar “Maha Jungle Raj” under the leadership of CM Nitish Kumar.
Chirag, who is currently in the NDA fold, told reporters that all the sections of the IPC must be scrapped in Bihar since it has become a state of “Lathi-goli ki sarkar”. It has become a daily affair in the state of Bihar that the police resort to lathicharge on teacher aspirants, political leaders, farmers, students, he alleged.
“When CM Nitish Kumar could ask PM Modi to make a statement on Manipur, why can’t he make a statement on firing, rape and lathi charge in his state? Why he is not visiting Katihar and Begusarai, his own home districts, he asks.