DC Edit | Chirag vs Nitish: Bihar Governance Is In Focus

The plainspeak of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas Paswan) leader and Union minister for food processing Chirag Paswan on the law and order situation in Bihar has the potential to undermine an important political plank of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state but its real import lies in that it reflects the governance or lack of it in one of the most populous and poorest states in India.

The response of the NDA ally has come in the wake of the reports of a series of heinous and barbaric crimes from the state, the latest being that of the rape of a woman in an ambulance. There was a spate of killings of high-profile people in the state, reflective of the near-collapse of the law and order machinery and administration of criminal justice system. The merit in Mr Paswan’s allegation comes from the fact that his problem lies not just with the incidents but in the government’s response to it as well. He would read it as the total submission of the administration before the criminals as it can neither stop the crime from happening, nor can it respond to it adequately.

BJP leaders, starting from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, would miss no occasion to remind the people of Bihar of what they brand as ‘jungle raj’ under the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for decades. The NDA under Mr Nitish Kumar has ended it, they would claim and would count it as one of the benefits of the “double-engine” government before posing the question to the people as to whether they want to continue to live in a law-abiding society or go back to a lawless one. Mr Paswan’s statements would drain much of the strength in that line of argument in an election year.

Mr Paswan has consistently proved that he has his own support base which can play a crucial game in a tight electoral match. He may have his own grind to axe against Mr Kumar and the BJP leadership but his public display of discomfort with the state of affairs could add to the armoury of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and the Mahagathbandhan his party leads. The discord in the NDA front, where the BJP is yet to decide on the chief ministerial candidate and the number of seats it could concede to JD(U), comes in contrast with the Mahagathbandhan which has practically decided on a seat-sharing formula and has started talks on seat swapping among the alliance partners with winnability as the chief criteria.

It is a fact that Bihar comes at the bottom of most of the indicators of Niti Aayog when it comes to human development. The state lacks in education, healthcare services and infrastructure, the essential components of development. And if law and order, which is a necessary condition to attract investment and create employment, is down in the dumps, it will prolong the process of emancipation of the people in a state which has the most fertile arable land in the country.

Elections are important, and political formations should be able to articulate their policies and positions in no uncertain terms. But the larger interest of them should lie in ensuring the lives and properties of the citizens. All the contesting parties will have to do a proper rethink on this count before they approach the people seeking a mandate to rule them for another five years.