Nitish Ministers on Run on Corruption Charges

What should have been done by the media in Bihar, newbie Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor has done it in a few months. He has lifted off the lid on the muck in the system. People were in the know of it as they suffered it daily at government offices across the state but they needed some leader who can bring it on public platforms to confront the corrupt from Patna down to the Panchayat. Prashant Kishor has filled this void. 

Ministers and MLAs are scurrying for cover in their own constituencies when faced with the ire of the people. In the past few months, Prashant by way of targeting four ministers of the Nitish cabinet– Ashok Choudhary of JDU, Dilip Jaiswal, Samrat Chaudhary and Mangal Pandey of BJP– has shown that corruption was thriving under the nose of the chief minister, and the media was looking the other way, either in apprehension of inviting the displeasure of Nitish or voluntarily.

Prashant has accused Dilip Jaiswal of capturing a Sikh minority medical college in Katihar in a fraudulent manner and obtaining deemed university status for it by bribing state health minister Magal Pandey. So far, no rebuttal has come from Jaiswal on the two charges. 

Mangal Pandey was also charged with raking in money in the ambulance purchase scam. Mangal Pandey has countered the charges against him saying the deemed status is granted by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the health ministry has no role in it. But Prashant claims that without the recommendation of the health department, the UGC cannot move on it. As regards the bribery charge in the ambulance purchase, he said no payment has been made to the contractor but Prashant said that Rs. 100 crore has already been made to the contractor.

 Prashant has put JDU leader and minister Ashok Choudhary, Man Friday of Nitish Kumar, on the backfoot accusing him of appointing himself as professor without clearing any examinations and going through the laid down procedures. He has also questioned his Ph.D. degree.

Samrat Chaudhary has indulged in age manipulation and has unexplainable degrees, Jan Suraaj charged. From making ration cards, caste certificates to mutating names in the revenue register to paying land tax, everything has a fixed rate in the state. From Rs 15 to Rs. 25 thousand for getting a receipt on payment of land tax, rupees one thousand to four thousand for a ration card and caste certificate. All these facilities are available online but the control of the bureaucracy on the files and procedures is so tight that it has made no difference to the pre-existing manual system.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s digital India campaign has hit a wall here. Even free ration is not given in full measure to the beneficiaries. They are handed over four kg instead of five.

When Prashant Kishor raised the heat on corruption in the state, people started resonating with him. When he asks people if they pay bribes to get these papers or get four kg grains instead of five, people respond with yes in chorus without waiting even for a second. 

The media as well the opposition parties ignored corruption all these years as they understand what matters most in Bihar is caste equations. One should not be surprised that even CPIML, which is wedded to class politics, has allied with Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal. They understand caste politics trumps class in Bihar.

But Prashant has changed this narrative completely by focusing on migration, unemployment and education. He says that in the past three decades of social justice politics, only 1,250 families have been rotating in the government with the masses receiving crumbs of power to sell the myth to them 

The social justice plank got exposed when Prashant quoted caste survey figures conducted by the Bihar government when Nitish and Tejaswi were together that revealed that only 5 percent of students belonging to the Dalit, OBC and Muslims pass out class XII examinations. So, whom will they provide the benefits of enhanced reservation? he asks. To the rich and the Forward castes, he replies.

Readapted from the ‘Jungle Raj’ of Lalu Prasad, the media sculpted the image of chief minister Nitish Kumar as ‘Sushasan Babu’. People too reeling from the worst governance of Lalu gave ears to it.

Nitish’s past political demeanour before coming to helm the state also had been controversial. He sought the assistance of Dularchand, a local small-time don of Tartar village in Mokama in Patna district, for his maiden entry into Parliament in the nineties. Though he regretted it at that time, his association with criminals continued, and still continues.

During the first five years, Nitish by and large performed well. He brought sanity in politics and put a leash on the runaway crimes in the state. Roads were built, law and order was restored, the reign of terror ended and people felt free and fearless to walk on the city roads after the sunset.

Broadly, people were happy with him and hoped that having brought normalcy he would focus on development, employment and migration, triple chronic problems of the state.

But the next fifteen years saw him go off his trajectory. He became a power-hungry politician. He created a record of changing political partners. He became a butt of jokes, and people started calling him ‘Paltu Chacha’.

Frequent expedient alliances just to hang onto power by him led to a sharp deterioration in administration and bred corruption from Patna down to the Panchayat level.

But the media's rather long honeymoon with the chief minister continues. Patna journalists still feel that Nitish has saved his image.  ‘Sushasan Babu’ image is still selling, they feel, adding that Prashant Kishor would not be able to taint him.

Prashant himself gives a clean chit to him. It may be a political move on his part. But he does not spare him as well for the rampant corruption in the state.  He blames his deteriorating health and stubbornness to continue in power for it, leading to his corrupt ministers and bureaucrats snatching the reins of power from him and making hay while the sun shines. But the mask is slipping down, and the ugly face of the governance is opening for all to see.