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Why Anant Singh arrest is not Nitish Kumar and Lalu's biggest test

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Giridhar Jha
Giridhar JhaJun 30, 2015 | 16:01

Why Anant Singh arrest is not Nitish Kumar and Lalu's biggest test

The controversy over the recent arrest of Anant Singh, the bahubali (strongman) legislator of the ruling Janata Dal (United), could not have been more ill-timed for chief minister Nitish Kumar. It has, however, provided him an opportunity to refurbish the image of his alliance before the all-important Assembly elections in Bihar.

The don-turned-MLA was taken into custody after his name cropped up as being the alleged mastermind in an abduction-cum-murder case. This had happened shortly after Nitish stitched a pre-poll alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav for the upcoming state elections.

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The legislator’s arrest has given a big opportunity to the National Democratic Alliance allies to hit out at Nitish for his reunion with Lalu. The BJP in particular, which is aspiring to grab power for the first time in Bihar, has sought to make lawlessness a major poll plank to discredit Nitish now. It believes that Nitish’s image of an able administrator, which he had cultivated over the past decade by providing good governance, has taken a severe beating because of his "unholy" alliance with Lalu, whose 15-year-long reign was known for rampant lawlessness in the state.

The murder charge against his own party’s MLA, therefore, has come as a big challenge for Nitish. Prior to Anant’s arrest, the chief minister’s detractors had believed that his government would not take any action against the Mokama strongman. But the Nitish government acted swiftly by sending him to jail as well as reopening old cases against him.

Quick police action against a ruling party legislator who wielded considerable clout in the power corridors in the past decade must have come as a surprise even to the BJP. The saffron party now alleges that Nitish had acted under pressure of Lalu because of sheer votebank politics.

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Nitish, however, denies this. “I do not work under pressure of anybody,” he said. “Law will always take its own course till I am at the helm in Bihar.”

Whatever be the case, Nitish has definitely acted as per the prevailing political circumstances. With Assembly elections barely a few months away, any leniency towards Anant would have prompted his rivals to intensify their attack on him. They would have cited the murder case as an indicator of the return of the "jungle raj" (lawless days) in the state. But Nitish chose to take the best political course ahead of the polls. He apparently knew that the BJP’s main plank in the upcoming election would be his alliance with Lalu who was his main opponent in the past 20 years.

The Lalu-Nitish alliance will, however, face its real test during the ticket distribution for the Assembly polls. In the next few months, the JD(U) and the RJD will have to contend with a plethora of ticket aspirants with criminal antecedents. An analysis of the past elections suggests that both the parties had always been shy of showing the door to such candidates in Bihar.

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But they alone are not to be blamed. Even the BJP-led NDA has not insulated itself completely from the history-sheeters. In the ensuing Vidhan Parishad election, for instance, it has given tickets to a couple of tainted candidates.

In fact, both the NDA and the Nitish-Lalu alliance have to show the political will to deny party tickets to the candidates with criminal records if they really want to pursue clean politics in future. After all, Anant Singh is not the only legislator in the state who has been charged with taking law into his hands. There are many others of his ilk who do not deserve to be the lawmakers from any alliance in the state.

Last updated: June 30, 2015 | 16:01
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