Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s efforts to secure and widen his party JD(U)’s base among both the state’s upper castes and the dalits has put him in a catch-22 situation after the sudden assertiveness displayed by a landed farmers’ organisation founded by slain Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh alias Mukhiajee.
In a strong censure of the ongoing probe into the upper-caste militia leader’s June 1 murder, his son and newly-appointed president of the Akhil Bharatiya Rashtrawadi Kisan Sangathan (ABRKS), Indu Bhushan Singh, has accused Bihar’s JD(U)-BJP government of shielding the main culprits behind the murder and threatened to begin state-wide agitations against the government’s “anti-farmer policies”.
“I do not know why the government recommended a CBI probe into the murder. We had not demanded a CBI probe at all. The government has its own reasons for seeking a CBI probe,” said Mr Singh on Saturday, setting off worries in the ruling alliance, which has been criticised by the Left parties for seeking a CBI probe into this murder while ignoring persistent demands for CBI probe in several previous murder cases. The ABRKS leaders described the probe and arrests made by the SIT as a sham.
The ABRKS also demanded that the government forgive hundreds of people, believed to be supporters of Mukhiajee, who engaged in severe vandalism, arson and pillaging during the passage of the slain leader’s funeral procession.
Significantly, such statements by the ABRKS came two days after the Bihar government challenged in the Supreme Court the acquittal by the Patna high court of 23 people earlier convicted for the 1996 massacre of 21 dalits at Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district perpetrated by the Ranvir Sena.