Hike galvanises anti-Cong front
The hike in fuel prices has galvanised all non-Congress political parties in Bihar against the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre and prompted them to plan statewide shutdowns in the next few days with an obvious eye on the state’s Assembly polls due in November.
While Bihar’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the JD(U) have gone ahead with plans to make a success of their July 5 bandh, the RJD-LJP combine, the state’s main Opposition group, has given a bandh call for July 10 in an apparent attempt not to be seen together with the ruling coalition. The RJD-LJP has also been publicising its proposed bandh as an additional protest against the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government on the issues of corruption and non-availability of power and water to the people.
But the RJD, despite some of the most colourful protest demonstrations organised in Bihar against the fuel price hikes so far, is facing stiff criticism from the ruling NDA and Left parties for its double standards.
The BJP-JD(U) alliance and the Left parties have been charging the RJD with supporting the Centre’s UPA government on price hike as the RJD’s walkout from the Lok Sabha had helped the UPA defeat an Opposition-sponsored cut motion on the issue.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has been quiet on the Opposition’s charges of double standards even as the BJP and the JD(U) have been repeatedly telling Bihar’s people that the RJD’s attitude had revealed its latent support for the Congress, with which it had an alliance government in Bihar for many years.
But with their innovative ideas of protest, the RJD seems to be stealing the show in Bihar. Soon after the fuel price hikes were announced, the RJD’s women activists expressed protest by cooking food on Patna’s streets and then the party’s leaders and male activists took out a procession of tractors and a “motorbike walk”, in which they walked several kilometres with their bikes.
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