Patna Darbar

Nitish Kumar is now Bihar’s Agony Uncle

It is one role Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been performing with consummate ease these days. Lending a sympathetic ear to the personal problems of visitors to his Janata Durbar – his weekly confab with the masses at the chief ministerial bungalow – he has emerged as a man with the proverbial magic wand to redress the grievances of people.From runaway lovers to women cheated in love, everybody has knocked at the doors of Nitish's Durbar. Even his relatives, personal staff and sundry old acquaintances like an elderly chaiwala (tea vendor) and barber have landed before him with their tales of woes.After assuming power in Bihar, Nitish started holding a weekly durbar to show how easily accessible he was— unlike many of his predecessors who chose to operate from their ivory towers.But as it turned out, he has become too accessible, with disputants rushing in with seemingly trivial complaints which do not really merit the attention of a chief minister. Nineteen-year-old Poonam, from Magadh Mahila College, Patna City, approached the CM after her love marriage, to lodge a complaint against her in-laws. Gunjan Prem came all the way from Pusa in Samastipur district to tell him how the man she loved and married turned out to be a much-married person.A woman home guard Sudha Kumari shed tears before Nitish after her husband drove her out of their home, while the widow of a sub-divisional officer charged her in-laws with having stolen all her jewellry.The popular durbar has also drawn the CM’s acquaintances from his student days. Surendra Prasad, the owner of his favourite tea stall and a barber, Jangi Thakur, came to complain about the demolition of their shops by the administration to facilitate widening of the roads at Nitish's native place Bakhtiarpur.Government officials too have benefited from direct access to their chief -- DIG Ajay Verma sought his intervention to get his seven months' salary. Kumud Singh, a woman security staffer, deployed at his official bungalow, handed over a petition for her transfer to Jharkhand where her husband was posted.All this has left senior bureaucrats and police officers who officiate at the durbar quite exasperated. Many times, they are at the receiving end of the visitor's complaints. DGP Ashish Ranjan Sinha and other officers have often lost their cool while dealing with the teeming complainants. But Nitish remains unruffled, disposing off the petitions with promptitude and briskness at his durbar. Sometimes, he picks up the phone and calls up DMs and SPs when he receives complaints. Once a district magistrate took him for a prankster and hung up the phone on him. He was promptly taken to task. It is not as though the Rajputs of Rajasthan alone are up in arms over the film, Jodhaa Akbar, which was released worldwide on Friday. Their Bihari brethren are equally livid over the alleged travesty of history in the movie. A gentleman claiming to represent the Kshatriya Mahasabha has already filed a petition in the CJM court in Patna seeking a ban on the film while another organisation called Maharana Rajput Mahasangh has sought the arrest of the film's director, Ashutosh Gowarikar, and its lead actress Aishwarya Rai. But such protests have only made the distributors smile in Bihar where period films have had a poor box office record. Historical fiction or truth, what is plain is that controversies have however always set the cash boxes jingling in the state.

Home Secretary keeps mum

Bihar's principal Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah is a quiet man these days. No, he has not taken a vow to remain silent but the once-voluble, high-profile bureaucrat is hibernating. He did not utter a word when RJD MP Pappu Yadav was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for the murder of Ajit Sarkar. This was in sharp contrast to the days when another bahubali politician Anand Mohan was given the death sentence a few months ago. Then, Amanullah had spit fire and vitriol about the state government's resolve to book politicians with criminal antecedents through speedy trials. He took pride in telling everyone how the days of musclemen in Bihar politics were finally numbered. Everything was going well for the bureaucrat until a ruling party MP, involved in a few criminal cases, took exception to the home secretary's statements and lodged a strong protest with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar complaining about the official’s “big mouth.” The parliamentarian also accused him of not following the dharma of a civil servant.Nitish apparently endorsed his point and called his energetic home secretary to give him

some “politically correct” advice. Since then, mum is the word for Afazal Amanullah.

Tits - Bits

Bihar’s Bollywood Badshahs had enthusiastically pledged for development in their beleaguered state. Shatrughan Sinha submitted a project report for an ambitious Film City in Nalanda-Rajgir belt, Shekhar Suman proposed a paediatric hospital, producer-director Prakash Jha wanted a sugar mill and a multiplex, Manoj Bajpai wanted to launch an education project in West Champaran, his home district. Even new kid on the block, Neetu Chandra of Traffic Signal fame had expressed her resolve to 'help’ Bihar. But two years and four months on, their proposals remain on paper with the Nitish Kumar government showing no urgency to rope in the services of the film personalities. Most of the projects have run into legal road blocks, red tape or sheer sloth. While all of them are a call away, Bihari babus are in switch-off mode.