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(Bihar Times) Patna: Lalu Yadav played to the gallery when he was the chief minister. A decade or more later Nitish Kumar is doing exactly the same. But they both are doing for different reasons.
When the then chief minister Lalu Yadav was asked by the CBI to appear for questioning during the heydays of fodder scam investigation he hired a rickshaw and went to the CBI office, which incidentally is not even 200 yards away from the chief minister’s residence.
On March 5, 2009 Nitish Kumar took a rickshaw to go to watch the movie Slumdog Millionaire in a cinema hall. A posse of security personnel ran behind him for the entire stretch of over three kilometres. Janata Dal (United) MLA Gayaneshwar Prasad alias Gyanu, an old pal of Nitish, and BJP MLC Sanjay Jha followed him on another rickshaw to the cinema hall.
Talking to the mediapersons he said that “I had heard a lot about the movie that has won eight Oscar awards depicting the life of the common man. I decided to take the mode of transport of common people to watch it. I wanted to relate with them.”
The chief minister said that today’s rickshaw ride had revived his college days’ memories when he used to go to cinema hall on rickshaw. He denied that he was adopting the Lalu style of politics by resorting to the railway minister’s populism and said he does no imitate anyone.
However, RJD president and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad termed Kumar’s rickshaw ride as a ‘drama’ and an attempt to imitate him. “Kumar is trying to copy me and is exploiting the poor people by riding on their back to reach the hall,” he told newsmen at the Patna airport.
But the big unanswered question is: Why Nitish did not watch the film on CD at his residence and get a feel of poverty there itself.
comments...
I totally agree that this is sheer populism, BUT this is democracy, where votes get counted, not the comments/messages on Internet sites.The people who really go and do the voting, like this(thats why these kinds of acts are called populism!!!!!). I doubt that people who write comments on internet sites go to vote, atleast they don't constitute the masses. The masses of Bihar still like these kinds of acts and it gets translated to votes which keep politicians in power.Recent history of Bihar is the best example(last 15-20 years).So, If Nitish has to be in power he HAS to keep these things doing, else he'll be out.After all he has to go and ask for votes from those who still like these acts.So, instead of getting voted out, its better to keep doing these things which general masses of Bihar still like( off course it is populism!!!). Who is not doing these things in today's politics.If Nitish Kumar doesn't do these, others will do and get the votes.Its
practical approach...
Politics is the reflection of society.Whatever society likes, politics tries to cater that.The day when the society starts disliking these propagandas, the politicians will stop doing.
Mantosh
TX, USA
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I think it would have been more apt if Nitish would have driven one rickshaw himself to the cinema hall. Then he would really had got what he was intending to "A feel of common man". Its sheer populism and wastage of official machinery . All the ministers were on the rickshaw while the "aam security guards" kept running along.
Swapnil
2nd year UG student.
IIT Kharagpur
skshanu@gmail.com
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