In fact when King Khan was conquering Patna Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was out of the capital, busy in the “Sewa” (service) of the people of Rohtas. The truth is that even the last time when the hero was to arrive in Patna on December 13 the chief minister was out of the state capital.

It was not for nothing that the publicity conscious chief minister ignored such an opportunity to market his government’s ‘achievement’. The truth is that, perhaps for the first time in the recent memory, a visit by a superstar was embroiled in a controversy of this magnitude and he had to cancel the trip at the final moment on December 13.

In the state, where everything is viewed and weighed politically one can not ignore Shah Rukh’s reported proximity to Congress. Besides, he is the brand ambassador of none else but the Trinamool-Congress-led West Bengal government.

On the eve of his December 13 visit some newspapers in Bihar went overboard to write that in the past such celebs never found the state worth visiting. What they forgot is that Patna was then visited by Gulzar, M F Husain, 2000 Sydney Olympic Bronze Medalist Karnam Malleswari and hordes of sports and film personalities. It hosted two One-Day Internationals, one each in 1993 and 1996. The last one was in fact a World Cup match between Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Everything went on peacefully and no effort was made to market the ‘development’ of Bihar in all those occasions. Yes in early 1990s some of these visitors would applaud the then state government’s efforts on social justice and communal harmony.

But, of late, visit by each and every idol is used to showcase the state, unless the concerned visitor has some other political inclination, as in the case with Shah Rukh. So in this centenary year of the creation of Bihar the government could not utilize his service.

Team Shah Rukh too sounded somewhat political when Priyanka Chopra, while replying to a journalist’s query on being called Junglee Billi (wild cat) said: “Woh to mein hun hi… kyunki mein yahan ki hun (That I am because I belong to this place). By saying Yahan she meant Bihar as she was born and brought up in Jamshedpur, which was a part of Bihar till November 15, 2000. Thus she had no hesitation in calling herself Junglee of Bihar––quite a loaded statement.

Be it Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bachchan they are not here because out of love for Bihar or its people. Nor are they bothered about marketing or otherwise of the state. But in this era when cinemas are not the only source of entertainment and film industry suffering losses they are visiting various nooks and corners of India to promote their products. And this publicity can be done only in the early days of the release of their films.

So while Amitabh came to promote Aarakshan Shah Rukh was here for Don 2.

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