Nitish govt's image takes a beating

PATNA: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, who led the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) massive victory in the state assembly elections only a few months ago, suddenly appears concerned about the image of his government due to recent conduct of three of his party legislators.
Janata Dal(U) MLAs Sunil Pandey, Ram Pravesh Rai and Gopal Mandal hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.While Piro (Bhojpur) MLA Pandey has been chargesheeted by police for creating unruly scenes at a posh Patna hotel and threatening to eliminate the cameraman of a news channel earlier this month, Rai clashed with senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and art, culture and youth affairs minister Janardan Singh Sirgiwal in Chapra.
Sigriwal sat on dharna on the premises of a local police station to protest the incident, embarrassing the chief minister.
Mandal, on the other hand, has been staying at the Bhagalpur inspection bungalow of the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) for the past few months with his family.
Nitish, who was widely appreciated for sacking Jitan Ram Manjhi on the very day the latter was sworn in as a minister on November 24 last year for his alleged involvement in the B.Ed college affiliation scam, has failed to display the same resolve while dealing with these MLAs.
Although the JD(U) has asked Pandey to show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken against him, people are hardly convinced as they had expected the police to take stern against him.
Nitish, on the other hand, asked the hotel functionaries and the cameraman concerned to lodge FIR against Pandey.
With neither the hotel management nor the cameraman lodging an FIR, the police booked the MLA under bailable sections, arrested him and released him on bail within minutes.
Nitish's embarrassment comes soon after the chief minister took a dig at railway minister Lalu Prasad when one of his brothers-in-law Subhash Yadav, MP, forced the railway authorities at Patna Junction to bring a particular train on platform no. 1 instead of platform no. 4 for him to board it.
There are no two opinions that the likes of Lalu's brothers-in-law Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Yadav, RJD MPs Mohammad Shahabuddin and Pappu Yadav and RJD legislator Surendra Prasad Yadav frequently hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons during the Lalu-Rabri regime.
But the recent conduct of Janata Dal(U) MLAs is a pointer to the fact that such musclemen politicians — with different party affiliation, of course — are taking law into their hands even during Nitish regime, making it difficult for Nitish to convince people that he is committed to "sushasan" or good governance.
Nitish's problem stems from the fact that the JD(U) gave tickets to some candidates having criminal antecedents in the last assembly polls. Whether Nitish and his party will be able to rein them in, remains to be seen.