Author: Devesh Kumar
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: January 4, 2003
The Opposition-sponsored Bihar bandh
evoked a good response, with normal life going out of gear. In what is
being seen as the first Real test for the RJD government since the days
of the anti-Mandal agitation in 1990, large-scale violence was reported
from various parts of the state. The worst hit was the state capital where
protesters, egged on by the Opposition, fought a pitched battle with the
police. The state police arrested over 5,000 protesters, which included
leader of the Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi, former Union minister CP Thakur
and scores of other Opposition leaders.
For a change, the police were remarkably
restrained. While the police exercised caution, the RJD activists wielded
the baton to browbeat protesters.
With the railways ministers announcing
the cancellation of all trains originating from, and passing through, the
state as a precautionary measure, life came to a standstill.
Meanwhile, as the agitation over
killing of three OBC youth in a fake police encounter intensified, the
NDA has decided against seeking the ouster of the Rabri Devi government.
The issue found its echo in the
meeting of the Union cabinet here this evening. Railway minister Nitish
Kumar said that it would not be advisable to dismiss the RJD government.
"Experience has shown that such a move had the unintended effect of transforming
RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav into a martyr. It would be better to concentrate
on the demand for justice," Mr Kumar is learnt to have told the PM. This
argument found favour with the other members of the Union cabinet.
Unsettled by the popular response
to the bandh, Mr Yadav today launched a frontal attack on the NDA government
at the Centre, accusing it of "hatching a conspiracy" to dismiss the Rabri
Devi ministry by instigating violence over the issue of the fake police
encounter: "The Centre is conspiring to topple the democratically-elected
Rabri Devi government by instigating people to indulge in violence merely
to prove that law and order in Bihar has collapsed," he told reporters
in Patna this afternoon. "They (the NDA leader) want to repeat Godhra in
Bihar in their mad pursuit of power ... People will not allow them to succeed,"
he added.
