Greater leader versus boys’ tricks
When the chief minister was addressing a crowd at Danapur recently to distribute Indira Awas units to the poor, a group of All India Students’ Federation (AISF) activists was bent on jeering him and hooting him down by raising slogans against him. As the police and the district administration tried to swing into action and arrest them, Nitish put their action on hold and continued his speech. He did take verbal punches on the AISF members when he remarked that the event should have been held at a rural location instead of an urban one. “Had it been held in a rural area I would not have met these vibhutees (great personalities),” he jibed.
Ultimately, Nitish went on with his entire speech and the AISF sloganeering ceased as its members ran out of breath. “See, I am a greater leader than these boys. I know their tricks in and out,” Nitish told deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. Once when a section of students tried to shout him down, Nitish suggested that they should join politics and get him removed politically. “But that is the sign of a great leader. He never loses his temper or gives undue advantage to his rivals,” said a senior JD(U) leader, insisting that Nitish himself was a product of a students’ movement and knew all about student politics.
There has been speculation about why the city superintendent of police (central) Shivdeep Lande sports sunglasses whenever he is seen in public, even after midnight. There was speculation that he took up sunglasses impressed by the performance of Salman Khan in the film Dabangg. However, sources said it had nothing to do with the film. “Actually it is his lucky charm,” remarked a cop. The story goes that when he was in the Naxalite-hit Jamui district, he had a near fatal encounter with the Maoists. “Every other policeman was injured in the incident. Only Lande and his sunglasses remained unscathed in the episode. Since then sunglasses have remained his lucky charm,” remarked the officer. However, a section of district police cops insists that Lande will require more than his dark glasses to tackle law and order in the central area of the state capital. Though politicians may not admit it, Iftar and politics go together. There were political speculations about who drew the larger crowd — chief minister Nitish Kumar or RJD chief Lalu Prasad. LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan vowed not to invite the Bihar CM to his Iftar party as he was not invited. “However, the cake goes to Paswan’s Iftar party. All of Nitish’s rivals got together. They included suspended MPs like Mangani Lal Mandal and Upendra Kushwaha, Mandal had a half-an-hour chat with Lalu on the occasion and even the state Congress chief Mehboob Ali Quaiser, who had skipped Lalu’s Iftar party, was present on the occasion. It was all about future alliances and strategies of the Opposition,” remarked a seasoned politician. When the national president of the BJP women’s wing, Smriti Irani, came to Patna recently, she was surrounded by mediapersons at a posh hotel. The commotion diverted the attention of a person having his meal in the restaurant and he asked a journalist who the lady was. When the scribe told him that the woman had been a major TV star of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi fame, the hotel guest wore a blank look. “I still do not recall seeing her on TV,” he remarked. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi was a mega soap opera of its time. “However, the BJP appears to live on in its past glory,” remarked another guest.
