Rajput’s death unites Bihar politicians ahead of polls

‘Rajput’s death would not have turned into a big issue if there were no polls in the state.’

 

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in the recent past, has taken up three high-profile cases that had its origin in Bihar, apart from the recent case of the unnatural death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The first such high-profile case that it took up was the June 2012 murder of the chief of Ranvir Sena chief, Brahmeshwar Mukhiya, in Arrah. Then came the September 2012 kidnapping of a 14-year-old minor girl, Navruna Chakravorty, from Muzaffarpur. In August 2017, the CBI was asked to investigate the Srijan corruption case where multiple leaders from the ruling parties had, allegedly, siphoned off crore of rupees.

As of today, more than eight years later, the killers of Mukhiya are still free, there is no trace of Chakravorty nor does the agency know the whereabouts of the main accused in the Srijan case, Indu Gupta.

“No one, neither the politicians, nor the top bosses, are interested in these cases now,” a CBI officer, who was based in Bihar till very recently, said when reached for the present status of these cases. All these cases had generated the same level of noise, if not more, by the politicians and leaders as is being generated in the case of Rajput, when they had first come to light. Considering the poor track record of the agency to get into the truth of these three cases, that have/had led to major political debates in the state, the insistence of the Bihar leaders, cutting across party lines, for a CBI probe in the death of Rajput is tied to the forthcoming state Assembly elections.

Patna-based political experts said that the death of Rajput had become an important issue for Bihar-based politicians because of two reasons: it had turned/was turned into an emotive issue of “Bihar’s Asmita (pride)”, and secondly, Rajput belonged to the numerically weak but financially and socially strong Rajput community which enjoys even more clout in the present NDA government.

The Rajputs constitute just 5% of the electorate, but dominate in approximately 50 of the 243 Assembly seats in the state. As of today, there are six Rajput MPs from Bihar and 22 Rajput MLAs in the state Assembly. JDU state chief Bashistha Narain Singh is a Rajput.

In an interview to The Sunday Guardian earlier this week, BJP national general secretary and state in-charge, Bhupender Yadav, had stated that the death of Rajput was not an election issue, but an emotional issue for the “crores of people of the state”.

However, the fact that the BJP had not missed the political dividends that this “emotional issue” can generate, was evident when Yadav attacked the Maharashtra government for “botching” the investigation into Rajput’s death. “This was a botched investigation by the Maharashtra government, which has looked motivated too. Bihari babu Shatrughan Sinha’s silence on the issue is also baffling. He is part of the Congress and Congress is part of the Maharashtra government. What stops him from raising questions on the numerous loopholes in the probe?” Yadav told The Sunday Guardian.

A Patna-based political observer said: “There is no doubt that the NDA is going to make the death of Rajput an election issue. It will claim credit for the CBI inquiry and it will attack the Opposition by claiming that it did not want a CBI inquiry. The introduction of Devendra Fadnavis into Bihar elections, too, is part of the same political strategy. Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey has given a sign of things to come by the way he welcomed the CBI inquiry. Imagine a state DGP stating that he was elated that an inquiry from a high- profile case has been taken away from him and given to another agency. Just like the politicians, the DGP, too, is looking at his political future once he retires in February 2021.” It is pertinent to mention that Pandey had submitted his VRS in 2009 itself to fight the general elections on a BJP ticket from Buxar seat. However, he missed the party ticket at the last moment and was allowed to join back the service after nearly nine months of submitting his VRS. Not just the ruling NDA and the present DGP, even the Opposition parties led by leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, has welcomed the CBI inquiry and claimed that he was among the first leaders who had sought a CBI inquiry into the case. “No party wants to miss out on any political issue in this election which is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. It will be not an exaggeration to say that Rajput’s death would not have turned into such a big issue if the elections were not scheduled in the state right now,” a Rajya Sabha MP said.