Bihar BJP boss attacks Nitish Kumar over lockdown handling, JD (U) defends

Differences have cropped up in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Bihar over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown and the evacuation of stranded migrants and students.

BJP leaders including the state unit’s president have raised serious questions over the style of functioning of the state government. On its part, the BJP ‘s alliance partner Janata Dal (United) has defended the “Nitish Model” of dealing with lockdown as the most effective.

The latest spark came after BJP’s Bihar president Sanjay Jaiswal in a Facebook post questioned state government’s “lackluster approach” in dealing with the migrant issue.

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“The problem with Bihar government is that none of their officials clarify before the media as to which types of shops will open in which zone or which train is coming to Bihar and where to get registered. As a result of the state government’s attitude, people are posting on social media whatever they want. The state government should take lessons from the Yogi government in UP. UP chief secretary briefs the media very well,”Jaiswal, the West Champaran MP said in his post.

Only on Saturday, the state government had issued clarifications on reports that nodal officers have gone incommunicado and released fresh helpline numbers.

The state government also announced details of trains which would be coming with migrants and students.

The BJP which is the junior partner in the coalition now finds itself in an awkward position after Jaiswal’s post. A section of BJP leaders led by MLC Nawal Kishore Yadav, tried to control the damage by praising chief minister Nitish Kumar.

“There is no better CM in the country than Nitish Kumar,” he said and refused to draw parallels with UP CM Yogi Adityanath. “I do not know anything about Yogi government’s work. He (Nitish Kumar) is a better CM that is why BJP is supporting him,” he said.

The JD (U) came out in defence of Nitish Kumar and said that the Bihar CM does not believe in “populist measures.’

“Bihar did not commit the mistakes which states like UP or Punjab did. Bihar’s CM’s measures have been more protective, more answerable than his counterparts of UP and Punjab. Had he not adhered to the Centre’s guidelines, the number of positive cases would have been more,” argued JD (U) national principal general secretary, K C Tyagi. “Bihar model has saved Bihar,” he added and said that every party has the right to place its view.

But Jaiswal’s barb has given the opposition another opportunity to attack Nitish Kumar’s government.

RJD spokesperson Bhai Birendra said that the government needs to reply on issues raised by the BJP president. “When we raised the issue, it annoyed the JD (U) leaders. We had been demanding extraction of students but the Nitish Kumar government turned it down citing lockdown norms,” he said.

Leader of opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav said that the state government has no definite action plan to bring people stuck in different states. “The nodal officers have switched off their mobile phones or cannot be reached. The state government is also charging tickets from migrants,” he said.

The evacuation of stranded migrant workers and students stranded in different states had snowballed into a major issue with Nitish Kumar insisting that there would be no evacuation unless the Centre changed the norms which it did on Wednesday.