Dozens of colourful posters declaring chief minister Nitish Kumar as “missing” have flooded the Bihar capital, targeting him for his stony silence on the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and National Register for Citizens (NRC). It is believed the posters were pasted either during late last night or early in the morning but the officials have been clueless over it and have begun an investigation into the matter.
One of the posters carries a message printed in Hindi: “Watch this face carefully, which was neither seen nor heard saying anything for the past several days. Bihar will always be obliged to those who search for this man”. The message on another poster read: “Invisible chief minister who is seen only once in five years during his oath-taking ceremony”.
The chief minister has become the target of attacks apparently for keeping mum over the issues of CAB and the NRC. Of them, the JD-U had supported the CAB in the Parliament after initially opposing the Bill but the very move has left the party divided. While a section of leaders led by party vice-president Prashant Kishor has gone on opposing the party stand, Kumar has maintained studied silence over the issue—not speaking even a word over it even after the CAB triggering nation-wide protests and Bihar too is no exception.
The move drew bitter comments from the main opposition RJD. “Identify the man who has kept his mouth locked, eyes blindfolded and ears shut over CAB and NRC,” tweeted RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav.
मुँह पर ताला
कान पे जाला
आँख पे पट्टीनहीं अता-पता
है वो लापता#CAB_NRC पर मौन
बूझो कौन ? https://t.co/aP8sXheeZ9— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) December 17, 2019
What is further strange, the chief minister has preferred not to speak a word over twin issues despite the fact that he had been constantly making tours of the state in course of government’s proposed human chain programme over environment conservation and also holding rallies over the issue. Yet another peculiar thing is that the chief minister has been communicating through his men that the “NRC will not be be implemented in Bihar” but he himself has not spoken a word over it.
Observers say this could be the ploy of the chief minister to make quick U-turn over this issue too as and when the situation arrives, quite like the way he did in the past over the issue of Article 370, triple talaq and finally CAA.