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Elections: Bihar style

By MuraleeDharan Raghavan

10 October, 2010
The Verdict Weekly

Political parties should come forward to this incipient disease that is likely to become a hazard in days to come. Their responsibilities are not just to fight an election and win the seats. They are expected to follow democratic temper and evolve a system which is in sync with the social ethos…

The self-styled politicians in Bihar did it again. The assembly election 2010 is witnessing a new low in politics. In a bid to get hold of their pie in the electoral politics, viz, tickets, leaders have crossed all their limits. It seems, the politicians in Bihar are least bothered about democracy. They are showing no respect to democratic values. Nor are they sticking to minimum level of moral values expected of them.

Merely, for a ticket in the elections, the politicians, having spent time for several years in one party, are switching to others despite the fact his father, brother or kith and kin are still in the same party, from where learned his lessons in practical politics. How can one explain such acts? The numbers of such leaders are more than dozen. Citing their names is not important but the trend which they have begun is likely to cause irreparable harm in the coming years.

It has raised two questions. Can a leader who can’t influence his own kith and kin be able to do so to others? What is more distressing is that the leader himself is encouraging his daughter, son or wife to fight elections from other’s party in case he fails to get ticket for him in his party. There are numerous people who themselves may be a member of parliament, member of legislative assembly and ministers are seeking tickets for their wives, sons, brothers for assembly seats. Indeed, a shameful act of individual’s greed.

The second question that perturbs me is that henceforth the party focus will be on dividing family instead of society on caste and religious lines. If this happens, then it will usher in a new era of politics of intrigue that was prevalent in the ruling class of medieval India. Presumably, this has come to the present times politics in Bihar through soap opera of family intrigue on television screen.

Whatever it may be! It needs to be checked in time. Political parties should come forward to this incipient disease that is likely to become a hazard in days to come. Their responsibilities are not just to fight an election and win the seats. They are expected to follow democratic temper and evolve a system which is in sync with the social ethos.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had denied tickets to the near and dear ones in the last year by-poll. But, when he faced debacle he now has retracted his way and too is obliging them. This is improper on his part. He needs to stick to his stand. That was to be taken as an exception not as lesson.

People at times do commit mistakes but they make amends too. We are witnesses of the last Lok Sabha results in which the criminals were shown the door. It was the masses who realized their mistakes and gave verdict in favour of clean image people. Political parties had to rub their hands which had given tickets to criminals in the hope that they would win the seats.

The entire country hailed the decision of the masses. It was a moment to be proud of. What Nitish Kumar has done all in last five years comes only next to it? The entire country is proud on the discretion of masses. Firstly, they broke the contract of RJD supremo Lalu Yadav’s boasting of 20 years rule in Bihar in 2005 and then defeating all criminals in Lok Sabha Election 2009. We should congratulate the people of Bihar who acted timely and thrown out Lalu’s allegedly corrupt regime, showing them that the people in Bihar too aware about little bit of democracy.

Lalu’s wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi filed nomination papers for the Raghopur and the Sonepur assembly seats. Lalu Prasad claimed that Rabri Devi will win from both Raghopur and Sonepur and the RJD and its alliance partner Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP will form the next government in Bihar by defeating the JD-U and its alliance partner BJP, Lalu Prasad said soon after Rabri Devi filed her nomination papers.

Rabri Devi, in her mid-50s, was the chief minister from 1997 to 2005 with the active support of Lalu Prasad, who was allegedly ruling the state on her behalf. She has been the first and the only woman chief minister of Bihar so far. Political analysts say Rabri Devi, a school dropout, is no match for engineer-turned-politician Nitish Kumar, who is widely seen as a politician with vision and acumen.

Meanwhile, the BJP’s troubles are far from over in election-bound Bihar. A day after state unit president C P Thakur withdrew his resignation, angry supporters of a candidate denied party ticket staged protests. Thakur changed his mind in the eleventh hour on Saturday night following party chief’s assurance to look into his grievances.
In the meantime, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kumari Mayawati will started her election campaign for Bihar Assembly elections on October 14 by addressing two public meetings in Bihar’s Purnea and Muzaffarpur districts. For the first time, Mayawati’s Bhahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded its candidates for all the 243 Assembly seats of Bihar. The CM will address public meetings in 12 Assembly constituencies during the six-phase elections in Bihar.

Keeping this in view, the political parties approach to welcome the dissidents suggests that they aren’t ready to listen to the people’s voice; nor ready to acknowledge their inner desire to cleanse politics. When the people are ready to bridge the divide of all sorts, leaders of political parties have come up with a new one-divide family.
In a state where family as an institution is valued more than elsewhere, it is shocking to see member of one family contesting elections from different parties. Father in one party and son in another is not a good omen by any yardstick. This is wrong morally as well politically.

The writer is editor-in-chief of THE VERDICT – of the reader for the reader, English weekly published by The Independent Media of India Group, Mumbai. He may be contacted at [email protected], [email protected]