Courtsey :Mail Today , Delhi Edition
Nitish races ahead of Lalu with Vikas Yatra
THE EARLY bird gets the worm.
Nobody knows it better than Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He chose to launch his Vikas Yatra to get a feel of the voters’ pulse at a time when his rivals were busy speculating over probable dates of the next parliamentary elections.
As part of his well thought- out strategy, Nitish not only decided to get the crucial feedback of the people living in the interior areas of the state on the performance of his government, but also started spending nights in villages — a masterstroke that has caught his rivals off guard.
Nitish pitched his tents in dusty villages, went into the crowds without security and mingled with the people like none of his predecessors had ever done.
Though he has not exactly been hearing paeans of praise of his government’s performance from the teeming crowds at his camps, he has lent a patient ear to each one of them. As a result, Nitish has emerged as a favourite of the villagers despite rampant corruption charges levelled against his government.
But he has shown remarkable political gumption to make the villagers feel that he is not a chief minister living in an ivory tower but a grassroots politician who is one of them.
The villagers are happy only for the fact that a chief minister, of all people, is actually spending nights in their godforsaken hamlets.
“ Let alone the chief minister, we had never seen any block development officer ( BDO) coming to our village in the past” is the most commonly heard refrain in all the villages where Nitish has stopped for the night during the first leg of his statewide rural journey.
Interestingly, Nitish has been harping on the fact that his yatra does not have a political purpose. He says time and again that it is part of his resolve to provide sushashan to the people of the state. “ I want to take the government to the people's doorstep,” he asserts.
But his opponents know the truth. Nitish has been drawing huge crowds at all the places where he gets ample opportunities to showcase the successes of his three- year- old government.
He makes lofty announcements and launches mega projects in every region.
Rattled at first over the number of complaint petitions from the people, Nitish quickly turned it to his advantage.
He talked about waging a war on corruption, booking the unscrupulous government employees and exhorted the people to support the government in its mission. The people got the message: the officials may be corrupt but the chief minister is not.
Nitish will be happy to embark on the second leg of his village tour from Tuesday during which he will visit five more districts. He has made his itinerary so meticulously that he will have covered the entire state by the time the Election Commission announces the dates for the Lok Sabha polls and enforces the model code of conduct.
The main Opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD), has dubbed the Vikas Yatra as Vinash Yatra, but it has apparently realised the effective ploy of Nitish. Lalu has already announced his party’s padyatra in villages from February 17 to “ expose” the state government.
But then, Nitish has already wrested the initiative by reaching out to the people from across the state.
It is not for nothing that he has bagged the “ Politician of the Year” award from one television channel this year.
Nitish races ahead of Lalu with Vikas Yatra
THE EARLY bird gets the worm.
Nobody knows it better than Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He chose to launch his Vikas Yatra to get a feel of the voters’ pulse at a time when his rivals were busy speculating over probable dates of the next parliamentary elections.
As part of his well thought- out strategy, Nitish not only decided to get the crucial feedback of the people living in the interior areas of the state on the performance of his government, but also started spending nights in villages — a masterstroke that has caught his rivals off guard.
Nitish pitched his tents in dusty villages, went into the crowds without security and mingled with the people like none of his predecessors had ever done.
Though he has not exactly been hearing paeans of praise of his government’s performance from the teeming crowds at his camps, he has lent a patient ear to each one of them. As a result, Nitish has emerged as a favourite of the villagers despite rampant corruption charges levelled against his government.
But he has shown remarkable political gumption to make the villagers feel that he is not a chief minister living in an ivory tower but a grassroots politician who is one of them.
The villagers are happy only for the fact that a chief minister, of all people, is actually spending nights in their godforsaken hamlets.
“ Let alone the chief minister, we had never seen any block development officer ( BDO) coming to our village in the past” is the most commonly heard refrain in all the villages where Nitish has stopped for the night during the first leg of his statewide rural journey.
Interestingly, Nitish has been harping on the fact that his yatra does not have a political purpose. He says time and again that it is part of his resolve to provide sushashan to the people of the state. “ I want to take the government to the people's doorstep,” he asserts.
But his opponents know the truth. Nitish has been drawing huge crowds at all the places where he gets ample opportunities to showcase the successes of his three- year- old government.
He makes lofty announcements and launches mega projects in every region.
Rattled at first over the number of complaint petitions from the people, Nitish quickly turned it to his advantage.
He talked about waging a war on corruption, booking the unscrupulous government employees and exhorted the people to support the government in its mission. The people got the message: the officials may be corrupt but the chief minister is not.
Nitish will be happy to embark on the second leg of his village tour from Tuesday during which he will visit five more districts. He has made his itinerary so meticulously that he will have covered the entire state by the time the Election Commission announces the dates for the Lok Sabha polls and enforces the model code of conduct.
The main Opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD), has dubbed the Vikas Yatra as Vinash Yatra, but it has apparently realised the effective ploy of Nitish. Lalu has already announced his party’s padyatra in villages from February 17 to “ expose” the state government.
But then, Nitish has already wrested the initiative by reaching out to the people from across the state.
It is not for nothing that he has bagged the “ Politician of the Year” award from one television channel this year.
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