His 15-minute speech, standing on a chaarpai under a banyan tree at Rupouli village, doesn’t mention anything about his party’s 15-year rule in Bihar. Instead, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh — Union Rural Development Minister and RJD’s candidate from Vaishali — tries to convince his voters how the present Bihar government under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is not spending the Centre’s money for development.
Hearing Singh at his rural base shows an interesting aspect of the new Bihar: the two major opponents, who once fought over caste domination, have now entered into a tussle over development here. While people hail Nitish Kumar as a performer, Singh — the man behind the Manmohan Singh government’s major social sector initiatives like Bharat Nirman and National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes (NREGS) — is the local “vikas purush”. RJD — the coalition partner at the Centre — jostles to take credit, even as Kumar wants to sideline them and emerge as the only force of change in Bihar.
The silk-smooth road that leads to Rupouli from Muzaffarpur city is a sample of Singh’s work in his constituency, when Kumar is showered with praises for repairing roads in Bihar. Singh’s government has pumped in Rs 16.300 crore for Bihar in five years for rural roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY). Kumar also spent Rs 566.12 crore for upgradation of rural roads of remote and less populated villages under his own “Mukhya Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna”. Further, he has spent Rs 1,100 crore under “Mukhya Mantri Setu Sadak Yojna” in rural Bihar to outsmart the UPA.
Singh’s ministry spearheads the UPA’s flagship NREGS, which gives monetary and food grain support to manual labourers. But Kumar wants to go a step ahead: “It is not enough to calculate how many calories or how much wage a labourer is getting from his work. We need a livelihood act. Everyone has right to live. No one should sleep in empty stomach,” he says in a veiled criticism on Singh’s efforts.
At Mithapura, Singh slams Kumar for hobnobbing with the ‘communal’ BJP: “Everyone has left the NDA except (Shivsena chief) Bal Thackeray — who is beating up our people in Maharashtra. Nitish is sitting between Bal Thackeray and Advani.” But in his constituency, Singh has followed Kumar’s efforts to fence the local graveyards — seen as a popular measure to appease the minorities and curb communal tension.
Nitish Kumar’s government had come out with its “Report Card 2008” — a 48-page document elaborating all the achievements of the state government — when it completed its three years November 2008. Singh came out with four report cards: two on his ministry’s assistance to Bihar, one on UPA’s overall assistance to Bihar and the biggest one is on what he has done for Vaishali. Even as Nitish Kumar banks on development to sweep the Lok Sabha elections, Singh’s report card raises slogan, “Vikaas ke waaste, Raghuvansh ke Raaste” (Raghuvansh’s roadmap is for the sake of development).
In Delhi, one of the fattest file in Singh’s office is the records of his communication (mostly complaints) with the Bihar chief minister.