Bihar Analysis- July

Bihar, where caste equations are always of paramount interest, saw a new director general of police in the form of Devki Nandan Gautam,a 1974 batch IPS from a dalit community. Gautam was made DG of police in place of a Brahmin, Shiv Chandra Jha.

Claims of two other senior IPS officers were ignored while superseding Gautam. Gautam, is considered an upright honest officer. The then chief minister, Karpoori Thakur during a debate in the state assembly had described Gautam as God for the poor.

Gautam was being shunted for the last 17 years. First during the Lalu-Rabri regime and then when the government changed he was ignored for the initial two years by the Nitish Kumar government due to the pressure of senior Janta Dal(U) MP, Prabhunath Singh, against whom Gautam, was monitoring a murder case.

Nitish Kumar has obviously tried to send a message among the masses about his intention to give an honest police administration in the state by making Gautam, the new DG of police. The police headquarters so far has been a hot bed of groupism.

For the second year in succession, Patna remained waterlogged during the monsoon session. Boats were pressed into service the posh locality of Rajendra Nagar, after the entire area was deluged. The residence of the deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, senior politicians, bureaucrats and doctors was marooned and Modi had to shift to safer place alongwith his family for about a month. Medical facilities also came to a standstill as the clinics and hospitals were under knee deep water.

The district administration ordered closure of all schools as the school buildings and class rooms were waterlogged and movement of buses and autos became impossible due to flood on the roads.

The chief minister blamed the Rain God for the water logging and the urban development minister, Bhola Singh, held the previous RJD government responsible for the watery mess, alleging that the government did not create drainage system.

The entire monsoon session of the State legislature was dedicated to waterlogging problem and the entire opposition boycotted the two houses for the entire session. The leader of the opposition, Ms Rabri Debi, remained absent for the entire session inviting criticism from the treasury benches.

The Patna High Court intervened again as the state government failed in restoring normalcy in all the universities, where the teaches and the non-teaching staff are on strike for the last two months. Neither the scheduled examinations are being held nor are fresh admissions taking place. The new academic session has not started as yet. Since, the staff did not get salary for the past two months many employees died of starvation. The High Court has also admitted a public interest litigation filed by a student and issued instructions to the government asking it to take immediate steps for withdrawal of strike.

CM Nitish Kumar’s criticism of the Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav and describing him as the “world biggest liar” kept the politicians and media engaged for a week. The Railway Minister also retaliated and called Nitish depressed and a frustrated politician. Kumar said “Lalu Yadav’s only achievement as Railway Minister was to link his village and Rabri Devi’s village with railway line’’. Kumar was also upset over shifting of railway wheels factory project from his assembly constitutency, Harnaut in Nalanda to Chapra, Lalu Yadav’s constituency.

Madhya Pradesh Analysis - July

As with the other state bodies of the country, buoyed with the UPA wining confidence motion in Lok Sabha, Madhya Pradesh Congress is also making efforts to boost up the party workers but its work is being hampered due to the lack of unity, as disputes between leaders refuses to disappear.

BJP gained power in the previous state elections by raking up the pitiable conditions of BSP (Bijli-Sadak Pani) in the state. According to commentators the situation in the state hasn’t improved much and continues to remain the same but the main opposition in state assembly, Congress has not been able to ‘market’ this among the mass.Anti-incumbency won’t be much a factor in the forthcoming state elections scheduled for November, hence the Congress will need to work out some other formula if it wants to dislodge BJP.

Corruption which has recently beset the state BJP was an issue that could have been developed and used as a tool by the opposition but that too was not properly utilized. According to Party functionaries even though the state has big stature leaders, yet most of them are more active in the Center and hence the state organization is not able to utilize their experience and tact. Here too the party is facing a catch-22 situation as a section of the workers are wishing for bringing the Kamal Naths and the Digvijay Singhs into the state for a prolonged inning but another section of the party fear that too many cooks will spoil the broth and will result in more intra-party disputes.

As widely reported in the local media the intraparty dispute was clearly visible in two meetings that were held in two different places. One at the state PPC office in Bhopal, Indira Gandhi Bhawan and the other at the residence of a Union Minister Kamal Nath in Delhi.

Though it was said that the meeting at Kamal Nath’s place was to deliberate the future strategy for the state but those present in the meetings say that the subject of the meeting was an individual rather than the organization.

Among others who were excluded from the meet at Delhi included AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh, Union Minister Arjun Singh and senior leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi.

Two days later, Bhopal became the hotspot as supporters of Digvijay and Arjun Singh met to work out the future strategy. The most notable of the absentee was Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Suresh Pachauri.

As such instances of factionalism continue to come out, the view that Congress will lose hands down will grow strong.

The long standing demand of the state Congress leaders for arranging a visit of Gandhi scion to the central state was finally fulfilled as the Congress general secretary attended a special function in Bhopal and interacted with children in a school owned and promoted by a well known media group.

Rahul Gandhi also took stock of the political situation in the state through a brainstorming exercise which involved State Congress president, Suresh Pachouri and chairman of the State Congress Campaign Committee Ajay Singh.

Detractors of the state PCC chief Suresh Pachori, were left disappointed as the former union minister was praised by Rahul Gandhi for his efforts to bring the state organization into shape.

The state assembly witnessed unruly scenes as the opposition’s demand of setting up a judicial enquiry into the communal violence that was witnessed in Indore went unheeded.Setting a record of sorts no question hour could be transacted during the entire monsoon session, while more than a dozen official bills, including the supplementary budget, were passed without debate.

The state also witnessed two bandhs in the month of July; one in Indore and the other in Chindwara. Bandh was imposed in Indore after a communal clash between the supporters of the bandh led by the Hindutva group like RSS and VHP clashed with a section of the minority group. The bandh was called by these organizations to protest the decision of the Jammu and Kashmir government to revoke the decision to transfer land to Amarnath Shrine trust board.

Chindwara which is the parliamentary constituency of union commerce minister Kamal Nath, witnessed a bandh that was called by the Gondwana Gantranta party (GGP) to protest against protesting against the death of a boy at a gurukul (school) run by the asram of spiritual guru Asaram Bapu. This is the second death that has been reported in the asram in two days.