SPLIT in the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) has spiced up the political atmosphere of Bihar. Chirag Paswan, the son of Late Ram Vilas Paswan has accused the Janata Dal (United) of engineering split in the LJP and has strongly condemned the silence of BJP during the operation. He has indicated to come out of the NDA and launch a state-wide “Ashirvad Yatra” (Meeting people for blessings) to garner support for his future course of political activities. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has invited Chirag Paswan to join the Mahagathbandhan.

In the meantime the uncle-nephew spat has exposed the total bankruptcy of parties like LJP which are formed under the guise of “social justice” but end up serving the interests of those opposed to the very idea of any sort of justice for the common people. Lalu Prasad had nicknamed Ram Vilas Paswan as “Mausam Vigyani”, a clever man who remained with power.

In the last assembly election in Bihar, Chirag Paswan was used as a pawn by the BJP against JD(U). Chirag Paswan would have played a positive role in dislodging Nitish led NDA joining Mahagathbandhan at that time but he was used by BJP to harm JD(U) by encouraging him to put candidates against JD(U) and thus the BJP emerged as a much bigger party than JD(U). BJP is going to play the same dirty tricks with Nitish Kumar to have a complete hold over the levers of power in Bihar.

Though everybody knows the game plan of BJP and the recent two instances are ominous signs that BJP is trying to foment communal trouble by raising hue and cry over an incident in Purnea district where dalits were attacked by the people belonging to the minority community. Such incidents are the daily recurrences in different districts of Bihar and BJP never raises its voice against the perpetrators of such crimes against dalits. As the perpetrators were the Muslims in this particular case, BJP sent a high-level committee to investigate the matter and tried to fan communal trouble. Under the NDA regime dalits are at the receiving end as their villages and hamlets are being demolished in the name of encroachment on government and surplus ceiling lands. Jal, Jeevan, Hariyali (Water, life and greenery) scheme launched by Nitish Kumar government has come as a blessing for the land mafias and corrupt bureaucracy to carry on the demolition of villages and hamlets inhabited by the homeless and landless people who have fought bravely against the landlords and their armed gangs under the leadership of CPI(M) and other Left parties.

BJP is known for its brazen support to the Brahmiershi Sena formed by high caste landlord killer gang which was responsible for large-scale killings of dalits and other marginalised sections of the society during 90’s. New found love for dalits shown in Purnea is nothing but a crude politics of communal polarisation. For the same purpose, BJP tried to exploit the unfortunate incident in a madrasa located in Banka district where a bomb went off and the madrasa came crashing down. It was closed and there was no one inside the madrasa but the bomb blast took the life of the Imam of a nearby mosque.

BJP started a poisonous campaign against madrasas by branding them as terrorist-producing centres. In the coming four years BJP will try every trick to polarise the masses on communal lines to impose its political hegemony in the state. Chirag, Jeetan Ram Manjhi, and Mukesh Sahni are the willing tools for facilitating the communal politics of BJP by allying with it for a few crumbs of assembly seats.

There was a total failure of NDA to provide health services to the suffering Covid patients during the pandemic. There was a lack of health infrastructure, doctors and other frontline workers, and primary, secondary and district health centres and hospitals were in a pathetic state. Callousness shown towards the hungry and starving people during complete lockdown, abandoning the peasants whose produce were not purchased and were forced to either sell them below the production cost or leave them in the fields to perish were also witnessed. The producers of vegetables and fruits were the worst sufferers. Many of them destroyed the produce as it was very expensive to transport them to the markets.
In such a grim situation the main opposition party, RJD failed to take up these issues except issuing press releases every day. Tejaswi Yadav was criticised for his absence during the lockdown. It was only the Left parties that took up the cause of different sections of suffering masses while carrying out the central calls given by the party and “Samyukta Kisan Morcha”.  

CPI(M) took up the issue of the functioning of PHC’s in Darbhanga district in a big way which was, later on, picked up by other political parties too. The issue has caught the attention of the common people of Bihar and ‘right to health’ will be a rallying slogan along with the right to food, home and education in the coming months. Our Party MLAs visited many hospitals and PHC’s in their districts and tried to help the Covid patients. It was found that the doctors and other frontline health workers were handicapped in the absence of Covid related equipment, medicines, oxygen cylinders etc. The numbers of doctors, nurses and other health workers required to attend to the patients were few in numbers and even these handful front line workers were not provided with adequate PPE kits and other safety materials.

Such initiatives have been taken in Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur, Araria, Gaya, Kaimur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Patna, Champaran, and some other districts. The campaign against rampant corruption launched by the Samastipur Party unit in Bibhutipur and other areas has unnerved the politician- bureaucrat- contractor nexus and Bibhutipur MLA and CPI(M) leader Ajay Kumar was attacked twice in a month intending to kill him. The district party office of CPI(M) at Samastipur was attacked on May 29 while Ajay Kumar, along with his bodyguards, was present in the office. The armed goons employed by the vested interests forced their way into the office, beat up one of the guards mercilessly and tried to snatch his weapon. The vehicle inside the office was damaged.

There were swift and prompt protest actions against this attack. In Samastipur, and particularly in Bibhutipur assembly constituency, the Party has lost many valuable comrades beginning from Comrade Uday Shankar Singh to Comrade Ram Nath Mahto, the main organiser of the Party in the district.

The response of the district police administration is very ignominious to say the least. The SP came out with the statement that the attack on CPI(M) office is a result of road rage and there is no political conspiracy behind the incident. Rebutting the SP’s version, Ajay Kumar challenged the administration to prove its version or face the consequences. To date, only two of the culprits have been arrested and others are at large. Angry protests were organised all over Bihar demanding the immediate arrest of the attackers, providing full security to Ajay Kumar, and investigating the political conspiracy behind the attacks. Party organised a massive demonstration on June 23 before the DM’s office in Samastipur and submitted the memorandum reiterating the above-mentioned demands.