Parties scramble for issues in Bihar

CPI(M) targets Paswan, NDA attacks governor, LJP chief criticises Lalu and his supporters

A day after the schedule for the Bihar Assembly elections was announced by the Election Commission, all political parties scrambled to identify the political USPs they are likely to project in the course of polls and clarify who their political partners would be in the forthcoming election.

Clarification is necessary because in the "Alice in Wonderland" kind of a situation that the Bihar electoral battlefield has become, friends have become adversaries and enemies have become friends.

The CPI and CPI(M), otherwise staunch allies on the issue of secularism, are backing mutually opposing political parties, that observers predict can only weaken secular forces and pave the way for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to form a government in the state.

Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party, which emerged as the kingmaker in the last election and prevented both the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the NDA from forming a government, has entered into an electoral pact with the CPI. However, the CPI(M) has put its entire support behind the Lalu Prasad-led RJD.

Emerging from a meeting of the CPI(M) central committee, currently on in the Capital, Sitaram Yechury advised Paswan to desist from opposing Lalu""or step down from the central government, because such support was effectively sabotaging the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

Paswan retorted by telling Business Standard it was not he who was sabotaging the UPA but Lalu, who had done so not once but many times.

"What happened in the Jharkhand Assembly elections? Despite having an understanding within the UPA, the RJD put up candidates who had no chance of winning. RJD candidates were made to contest against the CPI. Theylost. Was not that sabotage?"

With all this bickering within the UPA, the NDA is going about its business targeting Governor Buta Singh, whom it sees as a representative of Lalu. Speaking in Gaya, Janata Dal (U) chief and NDA's chief ministerial candidate Nitish Kumar demanded that Singh be replaced immediately as fair poll was not possible in the state with him in office.

"It's proved through his own admission that he had spied on the NDA before recommending dissolution of the Assembly.

With Singh at the helm of affairs, a fair poll is not possible," he said before proceeding on the last day of the fourth phase of his "Nyay Yatra". "From time to time it had been proved that Buta Singh was acting as an agent of the UPA despite occupying a high constitutional post and dancing to the tune of Lalu and the Congress," Kumar said.

The NDA also criticised the governor's action of "hurriedly" issuing notifications for appointment of new members to various commissions after the announcement of the poll schedule.

Singh issued notifications appointing new members to the Bihar Public Services Commission, the Backward Class Commission and the 15-Point Implementation Committee yesterday just after the poll dates were announced.

"The appointments appears to have been made to appease the minorities and the backwards in favour of the UPA," BJP spokesman Navin Sinha said.

According to the notification, Laxmi Devi, Om Prakash Rai and Sudama Rai have been appointed BPSC members while the personal secretary of Rabri Devi, Ghulam Tahir, figures in the list of Backward Class commission.