The Maoist attack killing six policemen in Bihar’s Sheohar district on Friday night sparked off an intense blame game among the state’s parties on Saturday as security arrangements were beefed up for safe and free execution of Assembly polls in six northern districts a day later.
The landmine blast that killed six policemen on nightly patrol is believed to be a desperate step the Maoists took in frustration at the over 54 per cent voter turnout in Thursday’s first phase of Assembly polls. But Bihar’s two main Opposition parties — the RJD and ally LJP — quickly blamed Nitish Kumar’s JD(U)-BJP government for the rise in Maoist activities while the two ruling parties held the Congress-led central government responsible for the crisis.
“This is what is the much-hyped sushashan (good governance) claimed by Nitish Kumar’s government. The Maoist crisis in Bihar became much larger during this government’s tenure and due to this government’s policies,” said RJD principal general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ram Kripal Yadav. LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan held the Nitish Kumar government responsible for Friday night’s blast.
Former MP Prabhunath Singh, who was Mr Kumar’s close friend in the JD(U) before he joined the RJD recently, said: “Nitish Kumar has described the Maoists as his friends and brothers. It is he who has given the Maoists a free hand in Bihar in the past five years”. Mr Singh was referring, perhaps a bit too harshly, to Kumar’s continual insistence that the Maoist crisis could not be tackled through a bullet-for-bullet mechanism of solution.
Senior BJP leader and the party’s Bihar in-charge, Ananth Kumar, accused the Congress for increase in Maoist violence. “The UPA government has done little to tame the crisis in all these years. The Congress party’s policies are responsible for the crisis gaining deeper roots,” he said in Patna
Polling durations were curtailed by two hours in five of the 45 constituencies in view of the increased threats from the leftwing rebels and an alert sounded by the Union home ministry. Instead of from 7 am to 5 pm, polling in the booths in Miapur, Paru, Sahebganj, Sheohar and Belsand would be held from 7 am to 3 pm, said EC officials.
Securitymen would keep a watch on Maoist-affected areas from helicopters as thousands of central forces would guard the polling booths during the polls on Sunday.