Prashant Kishor interview: ‘Nitish has stopped listening … Having coffee with some leaders, photo-ops not the way to build formidable Oppn’ | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
A day before the launch of his 3,500-km march across Bihar, poll strategist says Rahul Gandhi should have started his yatra from Gujarat. ‘Congress should have started the battle from the place that matters the most.’
Now that you have already travelled across 25 of Bihar’s 38 districts before your scheduled padayatra, what are your takeaways and plans?
There is a vast majority of people who are showing a huge fatigue factor with the present regime. Whether they are JD(U) or RJD supporters, or others, they want something new. For the first time, I have been seeing people use terms or words they did not use for Nitish Kumar till 2014-’15, till the time I worked for him. No one used abusive words for Nitish till 2015. But people are using abusive words for him now … When I used to move around a lot for him before the 2015 polls, he used to say that the worst that could happen is that he might lose. He would say, ‘Hamne ijjat kamai hai, log mujhe gaali nahi denge (I have earned respect, people will not abuse me)’. I think that phase is over for Nitish Kumar. People will say Lalu and Nitish are the same. There is corruption, lethargy and inefficiency in the lower bureaucracy. There is no fear of government among such functionaries.
What are people saying about the liquor law Nitish Kumar often talks of?
The failure of the liquor law is a huge factor. People say, ‘Sab kuchh barbaad ho gaya (everything is destroyed)’. They explain how the liquor mafia rules the roost and some policemen also extort money in the name of implementation or non-implementation of the liquor law. There has been criminalisation of the youth (because of an illegal liquor trade). As for women, what I could sense after talking to a few lower court lawyers is that women are the worst sufferers, with their husbands, sons and brothers being sent to jail for drinking. The liquor law has badly affected law and order, with most of the police force being engaged in the implementation of the law or hiding facts from the government. I got such feedback after talking to some IPS officers … when I met Kisan Chachi (social activist Rajkumari Devi in Muzaffarpur), a mukhiya told me how the local police often get womenfolk from Mushahari to wash utensils at police stations. These women’s husbands often get arrested after drinking.
How have you selected your padayatra route? Have you also kept the social combination in mind?
Rating: 5