Patna, March 20: Chief minister Nitish Kumar's efforts to empower women in the real sense appears to have had no effect on a few. JDU MLA Sunita Singh (48) is one among them.
The legislator from the Belsand Assembly constituency in Sitamarhi rarely does anything herself as a legislator. Her husband, Rana Randhir Singh Chauhan, does all the talking. He even receives the calls made on the MLA's official cellphone number.
"Inseparable souls" Sunita and Randhir can be seen together in the Bihar Legislative Assembly building when the House is in session. Randhir freely walks into the chamber of the Assembly secretary and chats with other MLAs.
Two-term legislator Sunita has no problem with her husband accompanying her everywhere. She even claimed that she was an MLA because of Randhir.
"I have become an MLA because of my husband. People of my constituency may have elected me but the credit goes to my husband. I do not find any problem with this," Sunita said before leaving the Assembly today.
Randhir, who contested the Assembly polls from the Belsand constituency as an Independent candidate in 2000, claimed that he accompanies Sunita everywhere "only to boost her morale".
Sunita made her successful poll debut in February 2005. She had contested the Assembly elections on a Lok Janshakti Party ticket then. She joined the JDU before the Assembly elections were conducted again in October 2005 but lost in the poll battle. She successfully contested the Assembly polls in 2010.
The JDU top brass is aware of the strong attachment between the party MLA Sunita and her husband Randhir. He was flown to Delhi at the party's expense with her wife on February 10 when the JDU legislators went to march at Rashtrapati Bhavan to show their numbers in support of Nitish.
Except sitting inside the House, Randhir enjoys all the benefits of an MLA. It could be understood from the fact that in 2011 Sitamarhi police had ordered a probe into the alleged misuse of his wife's bodyguards for his personal use.
In his earlier stint as the chief minister, Nitish had acted tough against the doting husbands who worked as dummy mukhiyas in panchayats. But his government is still silent on Randhir being MLA Sunita's "shadow".
Asked about husbands accompanying women MLAs to the Assembly, parliamentary affairs minister Shravan Kumar said: "It is the jurisdiction of the Speaker to speak on the issue. As far as the government's stand is concerned, I do not see such practice in the JDU."
Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary took the issue of MLA Sunita and her husband lightly. "They enter the Assembly with my permission. Do you want me to create a chasm between the husband and the wife? Sometimes I give special permission," the Speaker said.
A senior JDU leader and a minister in Nitish's cabinet shared more shocking information with The Telegraph. On the condition of anonymity, he said: "This is nothing. I know many women MLAs whose husbands sign on their behalf on the Assembly attendance roaster. However, I am not in a position to take their names."
