Patna,(BiharTimes): Six years after the Kosi deluge of August 18, 2008 which swept thousands of people as well as cattle in Nepal and Bihar the state has a different chief minister.
Unlike Nitish Kumar it is Jitan Ram Manjhi, considered as a close confidant of the former, who is heading the state government. Incidentally, his government tabled the Walia Commission report on the Kosi flood of 2008 in the state Assembly a few hours before the landslide in Nepal, which subsequently created panic in Bihar.
Though it was purely a coincidence, and the report too was not as damning, yet it highlighted some of the serious problems related to the issue.
The other important aspect is the lack of co-ordination between the Centre and the state government in handling the disaster like flood. This situation usually emerges when the Centre and state have government of different parties or alliances.
Now the situation is more complicated. The Union government is being led by none else but Narendra Modi, with whom the former Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, had developed a very unique relationship.
Let us see how Jitan Ram Manjhi government respond to the situation. The BJP leaders often allege that Nitish is the de facto chief minister of Bihar, while Manjhi is a de jure one.
Anti-dam activist and expert on flood, Dinesh Kumar Mishra, who has authored several books on Himalayan rivers, especially Kosi, has raised a very interesting issue. In his Facebook post he teasingly asked now that Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of the country will the Bihar government return the financial assistance it gets to fight flood? After all Nitish Kumar had on June 19, 2010, that is two years after the flood, returned Rs five crore donated by the Gujarat government for the victims of 2008 Kosi deluge. The Gujarat government was then headed by Modi.
It remained a mystery as to why, In the first place, his government accepted the amount in 2008 and was reminded of it in June 2010. Perhaps because Nitish’s relationship with NaMo was not bad then.