Ignored RJD leaders feign happiness

The RJD leaders not invited to the marriage of Lalu Prasad’s fourth daughter, Ragini, have clung onto the age-old adage “grapes are sour”. Visibly upset over not getting the invitation, they are trying to portray as if it was a blessing in disguise.Thank god I was not invited. I remember being given the job of standing at the gate and welcoming the guests when Lalu’s first two daughters were married,” said a former MLC of the party. “Even ministers and senior officers were not spared from playing the role of gatekeepers,” recalled another RJD leader. But both appeared keen to know who all made it to the gust list of Lalu. The common query doing the round in the RJD circles these days is “Dilli gaye (Did you go to Delhi)?” The standard reply is “Dilli door hai (Delhi is far away).”

Thumbs down to Choubey

Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey’s threat — haath tor denge (will break hands) — to doctors has not gone down well among his party leaders though he later claimed that the media had concocted his statement. In the same venue (Gandhi Maidan) and from the same platform public health and engineering department minister Chandra Mohan Rai declared that the situation in Patna’s premier health nstitute Patna Medical ollege and Hospital was deplorable. “One has to be a VIP or know a doctor there to get proper healthcare,” Rai said. Chairman of the state legislative council Tarakant Jha recently grumbled about lack of proper healthcare in the government hospitals. “Choubeyji is a senior BJP leader of the state. But the poor performance of the health department under Choubey has compelled the Sushil Kumar Modi-baiters to go against him,” said a senior party leader, ecalling that Choubey was among the leading BJP leaders who led a revolt against Modi about four years ago.

Entire action shifts to UP

Several Congress leaders of the state are camping in UP for the Assembly elections. They claim that they have been made observers for certain seats. The Youth ongress leadership said it had sent around 60 of its members to UP for campaigning. The JD(U) leaders took the claims with a pinch of salt. “We hope the Bihar Congress leaders will replicate history in UP. They got just four of the 243 seats they contested in the Bihar Assembly polls,” a senior JD(U) leader said, ecalling that during the Bihar polls the state ongress leadership had a tough task justifying the hiring of a chopper as the candidates did not request the state leaders to campaign for them. A Congress leader was not amused. “Nitishji has also gone to UP. His party’s performance will definitely be worse than ours in Bihar,” said the Congress leader.

Caste crunch

Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s appeal to Bihar leaders to not to hold meetings in the name of caste appears to have no takers. Not only opposition leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha strongly rejected his plea. Rural works minister Bhim Singh, who had received a verbal lashing from the chief minister for speaking on castes, demanded reservation to backward Muslims at a public function recently. “Caste has been the epicentre of politics in Bihar for ages. To think about politics without caste is beyond the imagination of most leaders here,” said a senior JD(U) leader.