Returning from a weeklong tour of China on Sunday, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is facing a tough task of dealing with a host of difficult situations currently embarrassing his government while he also has to justify the effectiveness of his much-hyped foreign tour.
While the goodwill tour of China that Mr Kumar had begun on June 12 with a sizeable team, including two Cabinet colleagues — water resources minister Vijay Chaudhary and tourism minister Sunil Kumar Pintoo — is expected to generate a fresh wave of positive publicity for the JD(U)-BJP coalition government, the recent series of bad news and the Opposition parties’ enhanced firmness threaten to spoil the regime’s party.
For the widely celebrated “turnaround CM” who enjoys the enviable support of Bihar’s minorities, the brutal police firing at Forbesganj on poor Muslim villagers on June 3 and the documented graphic evidence of policemen savagely killing an injured Muslim youth there could turn politically dangerous.
Along with severe censure of the brutalities by nationally known social activists and several Muslim organisations, Bihar’s Opposition parties have resolved to keep the issue alive by continuing to stage demonstrations and seeking action on deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP.
In the upcoming Assembly bypoll in Purnea, the Forbesganj atrocities are becoming a dominant issue raised by the Opposition parties and it could contribute to the disillusionment of the minority voters, thereby threatening the chances of the ruling BJP candidate. Kumar’s government, faces a major embarrassment from revelations in a study report this week that over half of the state’s population remains malnourished and 70 per cent of the state’s women and children below the poverty line (BPL) remain anaemic. The report presented by Rupesh, state adviser to the commissioner of the Supreme Court-appointed committee monitoring implementation of food-related schemes, is an indictment of the NDA government’s efforts for food security.