Bihar: Opposition Uses ‘Jungle Raj’ Jibe NDA ‘Double Engine’ Govt as Crime Rises

Patna: The issue of lawlessness is back in Bihar. But, this time it is being raised by the Opposition Mahagathbandhan leaders in their attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, has been
using the "jungle raj" jibe to target Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is probably first time in the state that RJD is aggressively trying to expose "lawlessness" with facts and figures to embarrass the ‘double engine’ NDA government in the state and Centre, which claims rule of law and good governance.

A surge in Bihar’s crime graph in recent days has provided Tejashwi Yadav a readymade issue to use against NDA government failure to maintain law and order. He has been regularly issuing a crime bulletin -- list of serious crime incidents – to counter Nitish-Modi's old ‘jungle raj’ card against RJD’s 15-year rule.

In the past 10 days, the RJD leader has posted four crime bulletins on his social media with details including the nature of crime, name of victims and place of crime and date. He has listed 41 crime incidents, including murder, rape, loot, bank robbery, extortion in his latest crime bulletin on July 6 .

A sarcastic Tejashwi Yadav said that rising crime was a “miraculous" and "beneficial achievement" of the NDA government in the state.

Local Hindi dailies on Monday reported that a Dalit youth was murdered in Jehabanad district, four youths were kidnapped and released after they paid ransom in Begusarai district, a girl was raped in Muzaffarpur district and an old man was shot dead in Patna
district. Hardly a day passes without reports of killing, rape, loot, extortion, dacoity in the state.

Surprisingly, NDA leaders, including Nitish Kumar, are maintaining a total silence on rising crime in Bihar. The Chief Minister has been ignoring media’s questions about the spurt in incidents of crime.

However, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Monday strongly reacted against Tejashwi Yadav’s bid to target the ‘double engine’ government on the issue of lawlessness.

“Tejashwi should recall the rule of the 1990s and a thief should not speak against theft,” said Singh.

Several BJP leaders have publicly demanded a ‘police encounter model’ and use of bulldozers to control rising crime on the line of BJP-ruled neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

As per reports, apart from the killing of a police sub-inspector by the liquor mafia in Sitamarhi district recently, over a dozen incidents of murder have been reported in the past few days, apart from other crimes.

During the recent long election campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Nitish Kumar and Modi never missed a chance to use the term ‘jungle raj’ to attack RJD and warned people not to support and vote for the party.

Among the incidents of increasing lawlessness in the past few months, there were reports of a murderous attack on police officials by the powerful sand mafia and
liquor mafia, over a dozen incidents of murder have been reported in the last fortnight, including cases of rape, kidnapping, extortion, loot of banks, robbery and other crimes.
 

In the past six months, traders, businessmen, contractors and private company officials have been ‘soft targets’ of criminals in Bihar, as per report.

Notably, ‘rule of law’ was the main selling point for Nitish Kumar after he came to power in November 2005, criticising his political rival Lalu Prasad, chief of RJD, for “jungle raj” from 1990 to 2005. However, the reality is that fear of lawlessness has once again been haunting people now.