Patna,(BiharTimes): For the first time after snapping of ties with the BJP on June 16 Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar gave such a strong statement against any Congress leader. He went on to call the Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Choudhary as fool when the latter blamed the lack of coordination between state administration and Railways and absence of road network for the Dhamara Ghat tragedy on August 19.
But why is it that Nitish was so upset over the remarks made by Minister of State when he is tilting towards the UPA. After all in the last few months––even before the split in the NDA––he open-heartedly hosted Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde––besides many others.
Even when the Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar visited her parliamentary constituency, Sasaram, after a Mahadalit man was killed and 42 others injured on the issue of hoisting of national flag on Independence Day she did not directly criticize the Nitish government when there was enough scope for that.
But why then the Minister of State came down heavily on the Nitish government? And why the chief minister too chose to hit back to the extent of calling him fool?
The apparent reason is that the Railways at least was not at all prepared to take the responsibility for the killing of so many people on track. They are arguing that after all it is wrong to walk on the track even though it is also a fact that there is no rail overbridge in Dhamara Ghat station.
Secondly the railway officials were upset over the way the state government was washing its hands of by blaming the railways––the driver and station officials––for not applying speed restrictions. As the mob had turned violent it was natural that both the state government as well as the Railways would indulge in the blame-game.
Nothing was better for the Minister of State than to blame the absence of road in the entire vicinity of the accident spot. This hurt the chief minister most as an impression had over the years been created that there is no problem of road connectivity in Bihar.
But then there is a political angle too. It is other Chaudhary––the state Congress chief Ashok Chaudhary––who has repeatedly been attacking the chief minister in the recent weeks. He was among the first to rush to Baddi village in Rohtas where a Mahadlit was killed on August 15. He strongly denounced the state administration as the incident took place when it was already informed about the tension two days before, that is August 13.
The state Congress president also rushed to Dhamara Ghat too and dubbed the state government insensitive. He was in particular critical of the chief minister for not visiting the spot.
Political observers are of the view that it seems to be a part of the Congress party strategy to keep pressure on Nitish as going too far with him may prove counter-productive. Many partymen have started realizing that things are somewhat going out of the control of the chief minister. So siding with him may harm the Congress in the long run. So the party is using relatively junior leaders to target the state government while the seniors are keeping tight lipped for future game-plan.
Nitish too chose to hit out at Congress as he knows that the latter needs the help of regional satraps. If RJD leader Lalu Yadav is convicted there would be nobody left but Janata Dal (United) with which it can make a deal after or even before 2014 Lok Sabha poll.
It also needs to be understood that a day later Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary softened his stand and told media that he only talked about the lack of coordination between the Railways and state government, which could have saved so many lives.
Anyway politically both Congress and Janata Dal (United) are in a fix and can indulge in sabre-rattling to an extent.
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