Senior Bihar leader Shivanand Tiwari has described Nitish Kumar going to Rajya Sabha and Lalu Yadav moving away from active politics as a big void. The politics of Bihar has been analyzed in a long Facebook post.
He has expressed hope that in the coming time, this void in Bihar politics will be filled and a big political force will emerge.
Shivanand targeted both Lalu and Nitish
Shivanand, who has worked with both Lalu and Nitish for a long time, in this post has targeted both the leaders for the difference in words and actions. Shivanand wrote about Nitish-
‘Nitish used to call himself against communalism and avoided even the shadow of Narendra Modi ji. Later, he did not hesitate in holding Narendra Modi’s feet for power. And today the situation is that without any struggle they have handed over power to the Bharatiya Janata Party. If we look at the history of Bihar after independence, the change of power has always happened through struggle. The socialist movement of 1965, the change of government in 1967, the movement under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974, all these gave birth to the leadership of the new generation. Leadership emerging from struggle always brings with it a dream – the dream of building a new society. But today the situation is different. Today the change of power has happened without struggle. There was no major movement, no ideological upsurge is visible. Therefore today a void is visible in the politics of Bihar. But it is the law of nature that zero never remains permanent. Where there is emptiness, new powers are born. It is not visible today, but in the coming time, a new force will emerge in the politics of Bihar which will fill this void.
‘Difference between Lalu’s words and actions’
Shivanand has mentioned in his post that by arresting Advani when he took out Ram Rath Yatra, Lalu established himself as a strong leader against communalism. Shivanand has written-
‘When the demolition of Babri Masjid was announced, Lalu Yadav took out a procession from the Bihar Assembly, which went to the statue of Dr. Lohia. There he announced that if an attempt was made to demolish the Babri Masjid, crores of people from Bihar would go to Ayodhya and surround the mosque and protect it. But the day Babri Masjid was attacked, when people were climbing the dome and breaking it, Lalu Yadav was eating dinner in his room. This scene was being broadcast on television. Later he slept. We remember that Saryu Rai told me on phone that one dome of the mosque has been broken and efforts are going on to break the other one. I was deeply shocked to hear this. Immediately we reached the Chief Minister’s residence. Journalists were sitting in the drawing room down there. After taking the reaction of then opposition leader Jagannath Mishra on this incident, they were sitting there waiting for Lalu ji’s reaction. When asked the officer present there, he was told that they were sleeping after having food. No one had the courage to wake him up. When I went upstairs and woke him up, his reply was – Hey, I broke everything! When we were eating, everyone climbed on the dome! Now just think – the leader who used to call himself the biggest wall against communalism, who had claimed that he would protect Babri Masjid with crores of people, at that historic moment, even after seeing that the dome was being demolished, he went to sleep! This shows how big a gap there was between Lalu ji’s announcements and his commitment towards those announcements.
Injustice even with social justice
Shivanand has written that Lalu did not take care of the extremely backward people of the state. He has written, ‘Social justice is most needed by those who are at the bottom. There is no doubt that Lalu Yadav or the castes adjacent to him were also victims of social discrimination. Change was necessary for him too. But the needs of the sections below them were even greater. But social justice cannot be implemented in such a way that we sit at the top by removing those above us and those below us remain as they are. This happened and dissatisfaction increased among the lower classes. The result was that the same extremely backward castes, which could have played a decisive role, separated from Lalu Yadav and went with Nitish Kumar. It was from here that the balance of power changed.
A new force will emerge
Shivanand has written that a new and zero force will emerge in Bihar, but did not say anything clearly as to who this force could be. Whether he is referring to PK’s party or whether he is predicting the emergence of a completely new force or something else can only be guessed at this time. But being an old leader of Bihar, his comment is very important.