Patna,(BiharTimes): Strike the iron when it is hot, goes the saying.
But the politicians of Bihar, especially of the Janata Dal (United) and the BJP, are bad ironsmith. They are striking when the iron is as cold as ice.
Had all of them, cutting across the party lines, supported the demand of special category status and special package at the time of bifurcation of Bihar in November 2000 it would certainly have got both, as Seemandhra got the special category status now. But that was not to be. Both in Seemandhra and Telangana almost all the political parties were unanimous in their respective demands. So while one got a state another got a special status for five years.
Here we are giving call for Bihar bandh (shutdown) and rasta-roko (rail and road blockade) simply to disturb the children appearing in various examinations.
Ironically it is none else but the chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is calling upon the people to help the state in maintaining shutdown (bandh). How can a chief minister give such a call when various courts have repeatedly ruled against bandh.
His former deputy Sushil Kumar Modi did not lag behind. Moments later he gave a call for rail and road blockade on February 28 itself. So in this season of rallies––Narendra Modi will address at least four in the state––there is now a series of shutdowns too. On February 23 the CPI ML too has given one such call, but that is on Sunday. Let us see how the children cope with them in the exam season.
Anyway without indulging in any blamegame it is a fact that none else but the National Democratic Alliance was in power in 2000 and both BJP and Janata Dal (United) were its important constituents. Here in Bihar Rabri Devi was ruling the state. There certainly was a demand for the special category status then and the Bihar Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding special package of Rs 179,000 crore.
But the state got none.
If the politicians of Seemandhra unitedly demanded so, in Bihar they were a divided house. There is no denying the fact that the NDA bigwigs, who were in power at the Centre, never wanted Bihar to get the special status and special package as they feared that the then ruling RJD would be benefited.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad repeatedly recalls that when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on a tour to Patna and was sharing dais with CM Rabri Devi he publicly accepted the demand for the special category status. But minutes later at the Patna airport he backtracked on the issue.
What happened in between could not be known, but if Lalu is to be believed, after the speech Nitish Kumar told Vajpayee that if Bihar really gets the special category status the RJD would politically capitalize on it.
Even if what Lalu is saying is totally wrong, the responsibility for special category status and special package lied with the Centre and both the BJP and JD(U) were in power then. Is not it a fact that the then Vajpayee government was quite generous towards the newly carved out Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh––obviously because they were both BJP ruled then.
How can now they accuse Sonia Gandhi for giving special category status to Seemandhra as a compensation for the bifurcation.
It was because of this reason that when Shahnawaz Husain of the BJP said in Lok Sabha on Thursday that Bihar would be granted special category status once Narendra Modi becomes the prime minister he was pooh-poohed by Raghuvansh Prasad Singh of RJD and Sanjay Nirupam of Congress. If Vajpayee government could not do when the time was ripe, how would Modi do it now.
Analysts are unanimous that both the BJP and the JD(U) would not succeed in raising Seemandhra like pressure by giving calls of shutdown and rail and road blockade. They want to atone for the mistakes they committed 14 years back, but in the process mey end up causing great hardship to the people.