Though the serial blasts in Bodh Gaya did not cause much casualties as the explosions were of low intensity yet it shattered the image of the Bihar `chief minister Nitish Kumar as Mahabodhi Temple is an internationally renowned shrine often visited by VVIPs and lakhs of pilgrims from all over South and East Asian countries––not to speak of some tourists from Europe, America, Australia and India itself, every year. It remains to be seen as to why it was targeted during the lean season and at very off time for visitors.

But politically Bihar has been passing through a very crucial phase and the incident certainly put the Nitish Kumar government on the backfoot as it conceded that it had received repeated inputs from Intelligence Bureau (IB) in the recent months.

Though it is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which went on offensive political observers are asking one very pertinent counter question: Had the blasts taken place with BJP still in power and its ministers not kicked out by Nitish Kumar, what would have been the reaction of its leaders. And the possibility of any such incident can not be ruled out anywhere in the country or even outside. It had taken place in many BJP-ruled states too.

But BJP leaders appear determined to claim that had they been in power nothing like that would have happened. They are all on record to say that be it the police barbarity on Tharu tribals in Bagaha on June 24, in which half a dozen people lost their lives, or the blasts in Bodh Gaya, they have occurred because the chief minister of the state is too busy receiving the visiting Congress ministers from the Centre and saving his own minority government.

There is absolutely no doubt that the law and order situation in Bihar has been extremely bad, especially in Nitish Kumar’s second term––in some cases worse than the 15 years of the Lalu-Rabri Raj––yet to say that everything went wrong just after June 16 would be an exaggeration. Yet it is also true that there is not only political uncertainty in the state even in the field of administration it seems that things are going out of hand.

Even RJD supremo Lalu Yadav got an opportunity to take a dig at the Nitish Kumar government by stating that such incident never happened during his and his wife’s 15 years rule.

No doubt Bihar has witnessed much more violence in the past. Massacres, land-mine blasts and other types of Maoists attacks often take place in the state, but never had the state been shaken by such explosions and that too in the internationally famed Bodh Gaya. Even during the high-time of struggle for the control over Mahabodhi Temple Management Committee in 1990s it had not seen any untoward incident here. Buddhist groups have been agitating peacefully to control the Temple.

As the blasts were of low-intensity and took place when there were very few people around political observers are of the view that perhaps they have been carried out more to seek the international attention than really inflict casualties. And the perpetrators have succeeded in their goal.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar has, over the last eight years, carved out his place outside Bihar and the country too. He had visited China and Bhutan, both having large Buddhist population.

The Centre’s move to set up Nalanda University in the home district of the chief minister helped the latter get more exposure to the Buddhist South-East Asian countries. But the July 7 explosions have come as a big setback to his image. After all how can a state government be so callous of the security of such an important religious shrine and that too when there was so much IB inputs?

The incident has raised some other questions too: How prudent it is to just put the blame on the state government by stating that the IB had alerted it. Can the protection of a place of such a global importance be left just at the mercy of the state government. Is not there any role of the Centre in its security? Its safety and proper management is not just ordinary law and order matter to be left at the hands of the state government.

It is a fact that Bodh Gaya never got so much attention as it is due to it. True in the last couple of decades a few big hotels have come up. The number of pilgrims as well as tourists have increased. But so far security is concerned not much attention has been paid.

Till a decade or so back the entire outer boundary wall of Mahabodhi Temple was used as market for the sale of winter-wears and smuggled goods. However, it was much later that a place a few hundreds metres away has been earmarked for it. But that is not enough.