Jungle raaj looms large on Bihar

Patna: For decades now all of us have heard stories about UP and Bihar are two states where anything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

Here is the incident in Patna, showing what happens when someone is confronted with the fact that an MLA is abusing his power.

"Kya dikha rahe hai aap? Aye Suna thok dem; marwa dem" (What are you showing? Listen, shoot you; get you killed) said Sunil Pandey, a lawmaker reacting to media queries for allegedly breaking the law in Patna.

Meet the JD(U) MLA Sunil Pandey with 147 cases of murder and kidnapping against his name.

Pandey forcefully occupied a suite in a Patna hotel and then refused to pay.

The reaction of the chief minister, who promised to weed out crime in the state as he rode to power less than twelve months back, was also no better.

"Yeh sab aisi chizen hai ke iss par mukhya mantri ke pass aane ki zarurat nahi hai; kanoon ke nazar mei sab barabar hai; kisiko bhi shikayat hai, woh turant FIR darj kar dem" (For all these reason, there is no need to come to the Chief Minister. All are equal in the eyes of law. Whoever has any complaint, can lodge an FIR instantly.) said Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

Pandey is not the only MLA from the ruling coalition to have embaressed the government in Bihar.

Brandishing an AK-47 rifle in a private party of another JD(U) MLA Anant Singh in company of his friends was another evidence of lawlessness in the state.

The opposition RJD chief Lalu Yadav is down but not out. Along with him his brother in-laws Subhash and Sadhu also occupy the Rail Bhawan in Delhi.

And early this week they tried to get the platform changed of Patna-New Delhi Rajdhani Express.

"No, never; I have never asked any Railway official to get the track changed for any train," says RJD MP Sadhu Yadav.

With the change in regime, hope for a new Bihar was reconstituted. But if Nitish Kumar continues on the same path as this, these hopes would get buried every passing day and the faith imposed would fast lose its shades.

If NItish Kumar has to change 15 years of misrule in Bihar, he has to saddle his out of control horses.

Else the existing jungle raaj would become more dense.