'Jungle Raj' back in Bihar, says Ram Vilas Paswan after spree of murders
New Delhi: In the wake of a series of killings in Bihar, Union Minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday alleged that "Jungle Raj is back" in the state as predicted by the NDA and slammed the Nitish Kumar government, saying there is "no action" as if there is "some connivance".
"Jungle Raj (lawlessness) is back in Bihar. In the run-up to Assembly polls, we were saying that there will be Jungle Raj-2 in Bihar if Nitish-Lalu combine wins the elections.
"They (Nitish and Lalu) countered it saying it will be 'Mangal Raj' (good rule). Now people have to decide whether it is Jungle Raj or Mangal Raj," Paswan said.
The remarks by the Union Minister, who is an MP from Hajipur in Bihar came on a day when an engineer was found dead with injury marks on his body in Vaishali district, close on the heels of the murder of two engineers in Darbhanga district earlier.
"There is no action from the state government. It seems there is some connivance," Paswan said.
The victim, whose body was found in an orchard this morning in Vaishali, was identified as 42-year-old Ankit Kumar Jha, a Quality Engineer of Reliance IT.
In another incident a foodgrain trader was shot dead by unidentified assailants in a locality under Yahiyapur police station in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district.
Taking strong note of these incidents, Paswan raised questions over the state government's functioning saying investments will not come to the state till law and order is maintained.
"One of the main challenges in the state has been of law and order. As long as there is no law and order, there will be investment. Who will come to invest in the state when engineers and doctors are murdered.
Apparently to blunt the good governance plank of Nitish Kumar, the NDA had repeatedly targetted him for aligning with RJD chief Lalu Prasad during the Assembly election campaign saying that if the RJD-JDU-Congress combine came to power, it will be akin to bringing back Jungle Raj for the second time.
The grand alliance of LJP, RJD and Congress, however, handed over a crushing defeat to the NDA, securing 178 seats in the 243-member House. Both Lalu and Nitish staged a comeback after their virtual decimation of their parties in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when NDA had won 31 of the 40 seats.
