Hint of Lalu in Nitish talk

Chief minister Nitish Kumar has not mentioned the name of his bade bhai (elder brother) Lalu Prasad once after the Assembly elections. But that does not mean Nitish has forgotten him. ecently, Congress MLC Mahachandra Singh was demanding an increase in funds given to girl students of government schools for purchasing cycles from Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000. “Mahachandraji is still under the influence of motorcycles,” said Nitish, throwing the House into a peal of laughter. It was a reminder of Lalu’s promise to give motorbikes to all school-going boys before the ssembly elections. “The thought about the well-being of his bade bhai (Lalu) is still in his (Nitish’s) heart,” said a JD (U) MLC.

Too noisy for comfort

BJP MLA Vikram Kuer created history by staging a walkout against the speaker’s ruling on Friday. He is the first MLA of a ruling party to do so. Kuer had posted a question in the Assembly on Friday. But when the speaker called him, he could not hear because of the noise in the House. Later, he realised that his question had been skipped. When he raised the issue, Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary responded that Kuer had missed the bus — Choudhary had called Kuer’s name four times but the MLA had failed to respond. An angry Kuer staged a walkout. “Kuer is the original revolutionary. He even rebelled against Karpoori Thakur in the 1970s, when he had introduced the quota system,” said an old-timer, adding that Kuer never hesitates to air his views.

Strangers at the wheel

Most Congress leaders are happy to see the back of Union minister Mukul Wasnik and Sagar Raika, who were in charge of the party affairs in Bihar during the election period. Most party leaders blame the two for the mess and the humiliating defeat of the party in the polls. However, the new in-charges - Gurucharan Singh of Gujarat and Pravin Rashtrapal of Jammu and Kashmir — are absolute strangers to the Bihar Congress leaders. “Never heard of them,” said a senior Congress leader, adding that over the years, All India Congress Committee (AICC) had put political pygmies behind the wheels in Bihar. “We used to have the likes of Rajesh Pilot and Madhav Rao Scindia. Even Jagdish Tytler and Mukul Wasnik were at least known to the party workers. But we hardly know these two,” said a former Congress MLA. While Singh has replaced Wasnik, Rashtrapal has come in place of Raika. The Congress leader also said Gujarat is a state in which Congress is not doing too well. “After the defeat, AICC seems to have dumped Bihar. They are using the state as a dumping ground for political pygmies,” he added.

Rules don’t apply

The political resolutions passed in party meetings are tailor-made. Everybody is supposed to raise his or her hands in approval. But in a recent RJD meeting that pressed for an 11-point resolution, one person who did not raise his hand. He was the RJD chief, Lalu Prasad. “Ordinarily, that would have been interpreted as a gesture of disagreement with the resolution. But he is Lalu. Rules do not apply to him as they do to the other members of the party,” said a senior RJD leader.