14/11/2013

 

If liars all, where lies the truth?


Soroor Ahmed


The greatest liar, hand-in-glove (‘santh-ganth’) with Indian Mujahideen, mentally unsound, involved in fodder scam, ‘daghabaaz’ (betrayer), cheat, so on and so forth are some of the expressions being used by various BJP national and Bihar leaders for the man whom they go out of way to stoutly support and defend for more than 17 years and with whom they shared power for more than seven and a half years––until he kicked them out of the cabinet.

In retaliation the chief minister dismissed all the charges against him as blatant lies, concocted and nothing else but figment of imagination of the BJP leaders.

Nitish Kumar, who till a few days back was just attacking Narendra Modi, and that too without taking his name, is now firing all cylinders on the saffron party itself, thus closing any possibility of post-poll alliance with it. In this no holds barred his love for Lal Krishna Advani too has vanished.

Never in Bihar politics such expressions have been used by politicians against each other and that too when they were so close to each other for such a long time. On Monday the BJP’s national spokesperson, Meenakshi Lekhi, went a step ahead and said that Bihar “needs more mental institutes”––obviously for treating Nitish Kumar and other JD(U) leaders. This evoked widespread reaction not only from Nitish but even the Congress party, whose state media incharge, Prem Chand Mishra, sought apology as the statement amounts to insulting the people of Bihar and “reflects the perverted mind-set of BJP about Bihar”.

It is only till a few months back that the common political rivals of BJP and JD(U) used to allege that Nitish was promoting RSS as he had once shared dais with its the then chief while he was in Patna. On the other hand comments like Sushil Modi has reduced the Bihar BJP to the B-team of Janata Dal (United) was quite common in the political circle then. Even many of his partymen were very upset with him. So if the former deputy CM is speaking too much against his former boss he appears to be making up for the past mistakes.

If Nitish is a fraud, cheat, scamster and the man who facilitated the growth of Indian Mujahideen and if BJP leaders are liars and worth equating with Hitler and Goebbels than why it took so long for both the camps to realize these facts?

For common men and women of Bihar it is not just one camp which is suffering from mental problem, but both. If the leaders of both the former constituents of NDA are liars of first order––as they are charging each other now––than whatever they had been stating in the last 17 years were false.

The allegations and counter-allegations have raised several serious questions, which both will have to answer. Is it that all the tall claims of development, figures and statistics dished out by them in the last so many years false and concocted? Is it that whatever the BJP and Janata Dal (United) leaders have been saying about the previous Lalu-Rabri regime or Congress party wrong? Are these leaders knowing what are they stating? Why have these image conscious leaders suddenly stooped so low?

Leaders of both the BJP and JD(U) need to be told loud and clear that the people are not at all interested in listening to these below the belt attacks on each other. They both are cancelling out each other’s credibility.

The problem with Nitish is that he is now finding himself extremely alone in his own party. Even the JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav, who is the former convenor of NDA, is not speaking anything against the BJP. After the Rajgir camp plainspeaking against the leadership Shivanand Tiwari and Narendra Singh too are largely silent. It was left upto Sanjay Jha, a friend of Nitish (who is incidentally a former BJP MLC), to condemn Lekhi’s remarks and seek her apology.

But it is the media of Bihar, especially the print media, which too is facing the biggest credibility crisis. All these years most of the journalists had been––without crosschecking the facts––busy publishing government Press releases and handouts issued by the ministers of both the BJP and JD(U). These were the people who were giving hundred per cent marks to the Nitish government for the roads built under the central government projects––be it the National Highways or Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana––and National Rural Health Mission.

Now they are in a dilemma, whom to support––Nitish or his friend-turned-foe. Till June 16 last anyone who dared to write some objective stories––for example, that the Centre should largely be credited for the central government schemes––was not only bulldozed by these BJP and Janata Dal (United) leaders but also by the same lot of journalists, who were doubling as public relation officers (PROs) for the state government.

Truth became the biggest casualty in Bihar in the last eight years for which those in the media should also share the blame.

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