Bihar: Why RJD Leader Tejashwi Yadav’s Crime Bulletins Are Creating a Flutter

Patna: The fear of lawlessness is growing and haunting people in Bihar following a surge in crime incidents in recent days, contrary to the repeated claims of sushasan (good governance) and rule of law (kanoon ka raj) by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government, headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal-United (JD-U).

Hardly a day passes without reports of killing, rape, loot, extortion and dacoity in the state in local Hindi dailies. It seems criminals are free and
targeting at their will without any fear. Their soft targets are not only businessmen, contractors, shopkeepers, employees of private companies and banks, but the common people as well.

The rising crime graph has provided a readymade issue to the Opposition Mahagathbandhan. Taking this issue to people and to expose it, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav,
who is Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, has been targeting the ‘double engine’ NDA government in the state and the Centre.

At a time when Bihar’s NDA government, led by Nitish Kumar, has been trying to woo big investors to the state for an economic turnaround, the failure to control rising crimes is posing a big challenge, as the fear of increasing crimes broad daylight may discourage investors.

When today’s ruling BJP was in the Opposition for a short duration of nearly 17 months twice, between 2015 and mid-2017, and again between 2022 and January 2014, saffron party leaders repeatedly blamed lawlessness or ‘jungle raj’ for the failure to attract investment.

However, Yadav has taken to social media to reach out to people to expose the NDA government’s failure to maintain law and order. In the past 24 hours, the RJD leader has issued two crime bulletins one after another -- listing serious crime incidents – to counter Nitish-Modi's old ‘jungle raj’ card against RJD’s 15-year rule in the state.

On Friday (September 27), Tejashwi Yadav posted a crime bulletin on his social media with details including the nature of crime and place of crime. He has listed 20 serious crime incidents, mainly rape, about 16 reported cases of rapes in the past few days.

”Modi-Nitish ke mangalraj ki dukhad, sharmnak evam ruh kanpane wali dushkarm ki en ghatnao ko aap kya naam denge”? he asked. (What do you have to say about the disturbing and chilling crimes in Modi-Nitish ‘mangal raj’?)

Similarly, on Thursday (September 26), Yadav posted a crime bulletin with the tag “Ram Naam Satya, Sushashan ka tathya, Apradhiyon ka Arghya”. In this bulletin he listed 143 crime incidents, more than 90 reported killings (murders) in the past few days.

This is not first time that Yadav has posted two crime bulletins, Since May-June, the RJD leader has posted several crime bulletins on his social media with all details.

Early this week, the RJD leader questioned last Saturday’s meeting headed by CM Nitish Kumar to review the law and order situation without the state chief secretary and DGP (Director-General of Police). This reflected how much Kumar was serious about law and order in the state.

“There’s no significance of a meeting on law and order in the absence of the chief secretary and DGP”, Yadav said.

It is clear that RJD is not missing any chance to attack the NDA government over rising crimes in the state. On September 15, Opposition leaders and workers took out a protest march against the rise in crimes and submitted a memorandum to the Governor.

RJD’s allies, Congress and Left parties, have also been raising the issues of lawlessness and staged protest against it in July, August as well as in September.

However, top NDA leaders, including Nitish Kumar, are maintaining total silence on rising crime in Bihar, with the Chief Minister even ignoring questions by the media on the issue.

Some ruling BJP and JD-U leaders, meanwhile, have been repeatedly reminding Tejashwi Yadav to recall the era of ‘jungle raj’ of his parents – Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi. Some of them have even publicly demanded a ‘police encounter model’ and use of bulldozers to control rising crime on the line of BJP-ruled neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

In April-May, during the election campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi never missed a chance to use the term ‘jungle raj’ to attack RJD and warned people
not to support and vote for the party.

A “crime free” Bihar and “rule of law” was the main selling point of the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government after he came to power in
November 2005, criticising his political rival Lalu Prasad, chief of RJD, for “jungle raj” from 1990 to 2005.

But it now seems that Nitish Kumar’s “crime free” Bihar and “rule of law” were mere jumlas (hollow statements) going by the official record of crimes in the past one-and-half decades.

Among the incidents of increasing lawlessness in the past few months, there were reports of a murderous attack on police officials by the powerful sand and liquor mafia, over a dozen incidents of murder in the past fortnight, including cases of rape, kidnapping, extortion, loot of banks, robbery and other crimes.

The writer is a freelancer based in Patna, Bihar.