Connect with us
Wednesday,22-January-2025
Breaking News

National News

Nitish Kumar, socialist leader of Bihar, emerges as challenger to Modi-Shah

Published

on

 At a time when the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are dictating terms, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar not only challenged but also sent a message to the BJP and the RSS about his political daring without caring about the CBI, ED and the Income-Tax department.

Nitish Kumar, a socialist leader of Bihar, was elected as the chief minister for the eighth time.

Kumar, a product of the political school of Karpoori Thakur and Jayaprakash Narayan was influenced by the socialist ideology of these two great leaders of Bihar.

He was influenced by the social justice and making of a Samata Mulak Samaj ideology of Karpoori Thakur and also participated in the Sampoorna Kranti movement in 1977 led by Jayaprakash Narayan.

Nitish Kumar was born in a Kurmi family in Bakhtiyarpur town in Patna district on March 1, 1951. His father was an Ayurvedic doctor, Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh and his mother was Parmeshwari Devi.

He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from the Bihar College of Engineering (now the National Institute of Technology NIT) Patna. During this period, he was influenced by the ideology of two-time former chief minister Karpoori Thakur (the first tenure of Karpoori Thakur was from December 22, 1970 to June 2, 1971 and his second tenure was from June 24, 1977 to April 21, 1979).

Karpoori Thakur headed the Janata Party government having amalgamated with the Bhartiya Jan Sangh which later turned into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Janata Party was influenced by the ideology of Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia. They broadly believed in the social philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar.

Karpoori Thakur, during his second tenure, had given 33% reservation to the Backwards in Bihar following the recommendation of the Mungeri Lal Commission. The Bhartiya Jan Sangh which was considered the party of the upper caste people, was not pleased with the decision. Leaders like Kailash Pati Mishra, the then finance minister in the Karpoori Thakur government, revolted against him in April 1979 and he lost his majority in the Bihar assembly.

At that time, Indira Gandhi was undoubtedly the strongest leader in the country. However, the Sampoorna Kranti movement of 1974 put the brakes on her political career.

The Allahabad High Court found Indira Gandhi guilty of rigging the election and imposed a ban for six years on her from contesting elections on June 12, 1975. Indira Gandhi, then imposed an Emergency on the country on June 25, 1975. During the Emergency, leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Karpoori Thakur, Ram Manohar Lohia and others were sent to jail. At that time, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and others joined the Janata Party and were also jailed.

Nitish Kumar was elected an MLA from Harnaut assembly constituency in Nalanda district in 1985.

In 1989, he contested the Lok Sabha election from Barh constituency in Patna district and won the seat. He was in the VP Singh government and served as union minister of state for agriculture and cooperatives.

VP Singh had implemented the Mandal commission report in the country and the BJP which had 88 MPs had withdrawn its support to Singh. At that time, the Mandal Vs Kamandal politics was going on and BJP leader LK Advani started his Rath Yatra for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

When the 10th Lok Sabha election was held in 1991, Nitish Kumar was elected again on the ticket of Janata Dal from Barh constituency.

Lalu Prasad Yadav had emerged as the social justice leader of Bihar with his strong vote bank of the Yadav and Muslim communities. He gave strength to the backward, extremely backward, marginalised communities of Bihar and became the strongest leader in Bihar. He became chief minister in 1990 for the first time with the Janata Dal.

Socialist leaders George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar then left the Janata Dal and led the foundation of the Samata Party whose ideology was secularism.

Nitish Kumar was again elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 with the Samata Party from Barh and George Fernandes won the seat from Nalanda.

He then went with the BJP in the 13-day government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. When asked why he went with a party whose ideology was just the opposite to his socialist ideology, he told mediapersons that political survival against Lalu Prasad was more important then socialist ideology. This is the survival strength of Nitish Kumar and this is the reason why he became the chief minister of Bihar for the eighth time.

He was again elected in 1998 to the 12th Lok Sabha and served as union minister for railways with the additional charge of the surface transport ministry.

In 1999, he was elected again to the Lok Sabha and became the union minister of railways, surface transport and agriculture in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

He first became the chief minister of Bihar from March 3, 2000 to March 10, 2000.

He contested the Lok Sabha election in 2000 and again served as the union minister of railways and agriculture in the Vajpayee government.

By then, Nitish Kumar had become the tallest leader of the Kurmi-Koiri and other backward class communities. That was the phase when Lalu Prasad was facing charges of fodder scam, and a number of massacres during the first tenure of his wife Rabri Devi’s government from 1996 to 2000.

Nitish Kumar got good support from the backward class apart from his traditional Kurmi-Koiri vote bank. He merged his Samata Party into the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in 2003. During the 2005 assembly elections, the JD-U managed to win 88 seats and became the single largest party in Bihar. He formed the government in Bihar with the help of the BJP.

Nitish Kumar got the tag of Sushasan Babu of Bihar with a number of welfare schemes like giving reservations to backward classes in government jobs. He gave 50% reservation to women in the electoral process of Panchayati Raj. He worked for social justice in his first term and managed to uproot organised crime like kidnapping for ransom in the state.

He gained the support of the people of Bihar and the JD-U managed to win 118 seats in 2010 assembly election.

As per the statement of senior leader Lalan Singh on Wednesday, Nitish Kumar could have easily formed the government in Bihar but he took the BJP in the government and respected the alliance partner.

In 2013, when the BJP nominated Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the NDA, Nitish Kumar objected to it and came out of the NDA.

During the Modi wave in 2014, the JD-U fared badly in the Lok Sabha elections. Nitish Kumar took the responsibility for it and resigned as chief minister. Jitan Ram Manjhi became the CM.

Nitish Kumar took over as chief minister again from Jitan Ram Manjhi in November 2014 and formed an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD. They made the Mahagathbandhan and also included the Congress party. They won the 2015 assembly election on the formula of 100: 100 seats to the RJD and the JD-U and 43 seats to the Congress.

Lalu Prasad, in 2015 announced that Nitish Kumar will be the chief minister’s face of the Mahagathbandhan. When the election results came in, the RJD won 80 seats, the JD-U 73 and the Congress 29. They managed to stop the BJP at 53 seats in Bihar despite a strong Modi wave.

The RJD, despite having more seats than the JD-U, made Nitish Kumar the chief minister of Bihar.

Apart from Lalu Prasad, the other RJD leaders thought that the chief minister’s post should come to the RJD, and they started targeting Nitish Kumar. A war of words started between the RJD and the JD-U. Nitish Kumar, who has one of the sharpest political brains, started looking for an opportunity and he picked on the corruption charges against Tejashwi Yadav in the IRCTC scam as an ideal excuse for him to come out from the Mahagathbandhan.

Though Lalan Singh, the national president of the JD-U, clarified during a press meet on August 10, 2022 that there were four leaders including Sanjay Jha, Harivansh, RCP Singh and another leader who gave him wrong advice to break the alliance with the RJD and the Congress and join the NDA.

Nitish Kumar joined the NDA in 2017 and formed the government with the help of 53 MLAs of the BJP in Bihar.

In the 2020 assembly election, Nitish Kumar contested under the umbrella of the NDA and became the chief minister of Bihar for the 7th time. After the result of the election, JD-U leaders accused the BJP of back-stabbing their party.

When Nitish Kumar resigned from the post of Chief minister on August 9, he said: “I was not interested in holding the post of chief minister after the 2020 assembly election. They insisted on me. Today’s BJP has a different ideology then the BJP of Atal Ji and Advani Ji.”

“The way BJP was trying to sabotage our party, we have discussed aspects with our MPs, MLAs and MLCs and every one suggested that I come out from the NDA. We have listened to their voices and resigned from the post of chief minister,” Kumar said.

“The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed in 1996 and at that time respected Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and George Fernandes were the leaders. The JD-U was associated with the NDA for the next 17 years. The reason was Atal Ji, Advani Ji, MM Joshi Ji, and George Saheb were respecting the coalition partners. Those leaders had principles to respect the coalition partners. And what happened now, BJP is back-stabbing its coalition partners,” Lalan Singh said.

“During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP wanted to win the polls. Hence, its leaders did not do any mischief. When it came to the 2020 assembly election of Bihar, what they did, BJP leaders back-stabbed us and weakened us,” Lalan Singh said.

National News

Shahi Masjid-Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute: SC adjourns hearing till April

Published

on

New Delhi, Jan 22: The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned the hearing on a clutch of petitions pertaining to the Shahi Masjid-Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute.

A Bench presided over by CJI Sanjiv Khanna decided to post the matter for further hearing in the week commencing April 1, 2025.

In the meantime, CJI Khanna-led Bench extended the operation of the interim order passed on January 16, 2024, whereby the top court had stayed the execution of the commission on a plea filed by the Shahi Idgah Masjid Management Committee against the Allahabad High Court allowing the application filed by Hindu devotees for appointment of a commissioner to inspect the disputed premises.

In an earlier hearing, the Supreme Court had asked parties to complete the pleadings in the matter and directed the filing of written submissions not exceeding three pages along with the judgments being relied on by them. However, it had clarified that the trial proceedings pending before the Allahabad High Court could continue.

The top court is also seized of a plea filed by the mosque committee challenging the transfer of suits by the Allahabad HC to itself.

Recently, it remarked that the decision of the Allahabad High Court to consolidate all suits pertaining to the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute of Mathura should benefit both sides.

“Why should we intervene in the issue of consolidation of suits? It doesn’t make a difference. It is to the benefit of both sides, so multiple proceedings are avoided,” remarked a bench of CJI Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar. The court said this while hearing a plea filed by the management committee of the Shahi Masjid Eidgah against an order passed by the Allahabad High Court in January last year “in the interest of justice” directing that all 15 suits filed by the Hindu side be consolidated. Multiple suits were originally filed before different courts of Mathura, with a common claim that the Eidgah complex was built on the land believed to be the birthplace of Lord Krishna and where a temple had existed.

Continue Reading

National News

Places of Worship Act: Mathura mosque committee urges SC to close Centre’s right to file counter affidavit

Published

on

New Delhi, Jan 21: In a fresh application filed before the Supreme Court, the Committee of Management of Mathura’s Shahi Masjid Eidgah has pleaded that the right of the Centre to file its reply to the petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991 should be closed.

The plea said that in an order passed on December 12, 2024, the apex court noticed that the Union government had not filed its reply to the petitions challenging the 1991 Act for over three years and directed that a common counter affidavit be filed by the Centre within four weeks.

The mosque committee said that the Union of India is “deliberately” not filing its counter affidavit with the intention to delay the hearing, and thereby, obstructing those who are opposing the challenge to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 in filing their respective written submissions, as the stand of the Centre would have a bearing on the same.

The Shahi Masjid Eidgah’s application contended that since the Supreme Court has fixed the date of hearing of the batch of petition as February 17, “it would be in the interest of justice if the right of the Union of India to file its counter affidavit/ reply/pleadings/submissions is closed”.

In March 2021, a Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.A. Bobde sought the Centre’s response to the plea filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenging the validity of certain provisions of the law, prohibiting the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

The plea said, “The 1991 Act was enacted in the garb of ‘Public order’, which is a State subject (Schedule-7, List-II, Entry-1) and ‘places of pilgrimages within India’ is also State subject (Schedule-7, List-II, Entry-7). So, the Centre can’t enact the Law.

“Moreover, Article 13(2) prohibits the State from making a law to take away fundamental rights but the 1991 Act takes away the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs, to restore their ‘places of worship and pilgrimages’, destroyed by barbaric invaders.”

It further added, “The Act excludes the birthplace of Lord Rama but includes the birthplace of Lord Krishna, though both are incarnations of Lord Vishnu, the creator and equally worshipped throughout the world, hence it is arbitrary.”

In an interim order passed on December 12, 2024, the CJI Sanjiv Khanna-led Special Bench had ordered that no fresh suits would be registered under the Places of Worship Act in the country, and in the pending cases, no final or effective orders would be passed till further orders.

The Special Bench, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan, had asked the Union government to file within four weeks its reply to the batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions), 1991.

In an intervention application filed earlier on December 11, the Committee of Management of Mathura’s Shahi Masjid Eidgah, had said that the 1991 law, prohibiting the alteration of religious places of worship as they stood on August 15, 1945, was enacted by Parliament in the interest of the country’s progress, which has stood the test of time for more than 33 years.

It added that Parliament had enacted the 1991 Act, which has stood the test of time for more than 33 years and the petitioners have chosen to challenge the enactment belatedly, after 29 years.

The application said that the mosque committee is party to 17 different suits being tried by the Allahabad High Court, where the plaintiffs have staked a claim over the entire parcel of land over which the Shahi Masjid Eidgah has been built, and have further sought the removal of the mosque structure from the said land, claiming the same to have been built over Krishna Janam Sthan.

“It would be in the interest of justice if the applicant (mosque committee) is allowed to intervene and assist this Hon’ble Court in the adjudication of the issues (relating to the validity of Places of Worship Act, 1991),” the application had said.

Continue Reading

National News

Congress is like fire, if you meddle with us you won’t survive: Kharge to BJP

Published

on

Belagavi, Jan 21: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday strongly criticised the BJP, saying that his party is like a fire and if the BJP tries to meddle with Congress then it won’t survive.

“You (BJP) are the ones who have burned the Constitution and defaced photos of B.R. Ambedkar and former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. If you meddle with us, remember, we are like fire, you will burn and won’t survive. Do not provoke us. It won’t be possible to thrive by constantly instigating others,” said Kharge while addressing Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan convention in Belagavi.

He further refuted the BJP’s claims that Congress insulted B.R. Ambedkar, stating that ‘it is impossible’.

“Who installed Ambedkar’s statue in front of Parliament? It was during the tenure of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, with Hukum Singh from Punjab serving as the Speaker. Today, Ambedkar’s statue has been moved to a corner where no one can even spot it,” he said.

Kharge accused the BJP of staging theatrics by bowing down to copies of the Constitution. “BJP, RSS, and Hindu Mahasabha burned copies of the Constitution and statues of Nehru. Without understanding history, one cannot comprehend these acts of hypocrisy,” he stated.

He dismissed the BJP’s claims that Ambedkar was defeated by Congress, explaining, “The Congress party elected Ambedkar unanimously twice. M.R. Jayakar from Mumbai resigned his Rajya Sabha seat to enable Ambedkar’s election. What did the BJP do? They burned copies of the Constitution,” Kharge said.

He questioned the BJP who made Ambedkar part of the Constitution drafting committee.

“You did not agree to the Tricolour or national emblem. You should be ashamed. BJP and RSS did not even hoist the Tricolour on their offices,” he said.

Kharge praised Rahul Gandhi’s efforts, highlighting his ‘Samvidhan Bachao’ movement and the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.

“What sacrifice has anyone from your organisation made for this country? During the independence struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi, Jan Sangh appealed to people not to participate,” he said.

“Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are younger than me. Union Minister Amit Shah insulted Ambedkar on the Parliament floor. We demanded his resignation and protested. This war has begun,” Kharge declared.

He lamented the destruction of government institutions under BJP rule, adding that BJP and RSS are busy looking for Shivlings under every mosque.

“Even RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat has asked the BJP to stop this. The communal hatred they are propagating is dangerous. The Congress is working towards unity in the country,” Kharge said.

Kharge also referred to a letter written by Ambedkar to his friend Kamala Kanth, in which he blamed his election defeat on Veer Savarkar and S.A. Dande.

He urged people not to believe the claims of the BJP and RSS blindly.

“All people must come together, support the Congress party, and ensure its victory in the elections,” Kharge appealed.

Continue Reading

Trending