A few days ago, the traffic was brought to a halt near Lalit Bhavan on Bailey Road for the chief minister’s cavalcade. The waiting traffic included an ambulance with siren on. The traffic police ignored the siren and the ambulance had to wait for five minutes till the chief minister’s convoy passed. Even after the fleet of vehicles passed, no urgency was shown to let the ambulance proceed to the hospital. This was the chief minister’s convoy. The cops do not show urgency in clearing the path of an ambulance even through normal traffic,” a commuter said, stressing that the rule of halting the traffic for VVIP movement was getting on their nerves amid congested roads.Most of the party workers and leaders of the LJP were “drowsy” at the party’s meeting at Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir on Frazer Road. Over half a dozen LJP followers were caught napping in the front row of seats while the party leaders were discussing issues related to their agitation against the Nitish Kumar-led government. The LJP chief and former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan was infuriated by the scene and yelled at his sleeping followers: “Go outside the hall or take the back seat.” A party follower sheepishly said: “The back seats had already been occupied by persons who wanted to sleep over the whole show and it was too hot to go out of the hall.” Paswan’s several followers feel that it was too early to launch a tirade against the state government. Right now, even if Paswan addresses a public meeting the people will go off to sleep, said another LJP follower. The lower rung of the bureaucracy is cut-up with chief minister Nitish Kumar for prohibiting state agencies from executing schemes carried out with MPLAD funds. “It means no cut money, which used to be 2 to 5 per cent of the project cost. The petty contractors given the projects used to shell it out,” an official said candidly. The fact that the MPLAD funds have been hiked from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore per year is hurting them more. Some officers have even calculated their loss. “It’s a loss of at least Rs 10 crore from Lok Sabha MPs of Bihar alone,” an officer said, adding that they were first hit when the legislators’ development funds were purged. “But whatever they say, the Bihar babus took their percentage (commission) even from the funds of powerful legislators,” a senior IAS officer said. Chief minister Nitish Kumar appears to be fed up with the number of family feud cases reaching his janata darbar. “People should resolve their family problems within themselves instead of coming here,” he told officials. But people of Bihar appear to believe that politicians can solve everything. A senior minister recalled that there was dispute over dowry in a marriage ceremony he went to attend. “The hosts rushed to me and asked me to resolve the dispute,” he said.
Friday, 16 May 2025
