Nitish Kumar facing stones and slippers?

During the past few weeks when Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar travelled in the state with his message of ‘vikas’, ostensibly to review development schemes and inaugurate new ones, he was frequently met with crowds showing black flags, shouting " Murdaabaad " and throwing shoes , slippers and stones in spontaneous outbursts of anger.

This started in Bettiah in December, where he tentatively started his usual winter tour of " Vikas Yatra " , where people shouted slogans and hurled chairs at him ; then it was seen in Darbhanga , where protests greeted him ; then in Begusarai/ Khagaria, people angry after killing of Dalits in a land dispute, showed him black flags and his convoy was pelted with slippers.

In Buxar last week. 3000 policemen, home guards and chowkidars were deployed by the administration. But even after two days of “area domination exercises” by armed police on the orders of the Director General of Police, as if it were enemy territory, the chief minister could still visit limited, sanitised, carefully " prepared " and cordoned areas while "potentially unruly and dangerous crowds " were kept at a distance.

In several videos doing the rounds of the social media, the chief minister’s convoy is seen being pelted with bricks and stones and attacked by angry villagers.

Nitish Kumar has been touring the state to monitor progress of development schemes since December 12, 2017. But Kumar faced angry protests in several villages and in some districts protests turned violent. The chief minister himself, however, escaped narrowly and remained unhurt.

In the video first circulated on Jan, 12, angry protestors are seen pelting stones at the Chief Minister’s convey, injuring at least one security guard. In retaliation, once Kumar’s car left the place of incidence, policemen are seen thrashing the stone pelters.

Sharing the video clip, the leader of the opposition, Tejashwi Yadav attacked the CM and tweeted, “Violent protests in every district of Bihar against the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar are extremely worrisome. Why is the media silent over this? The public is bursting the myth of kaagzi vikas (development just on paper) by pelting stones.”

Posting another clip of the incident, Yadav tweeted, “The poor of Bihar are throwing stones at the poor development of the state. Nitish ji must introspect on why he is being attacked in every district of Bihar.”

Attacking the deputy CM of Bihar, Sushil Modi, without naming him, Yadav said, “Nitish Kumar’s car attacked, stones pelted but not yet jungleraj in Bihar” mocking Sushil Modi’s freqnt complaints of jungle raj against the coalition government of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress earlier.

The former deputy CM, Tejashwi Yadav, asked the Chief Minister on Twitter, “Nitish ji must tell the public for which of his ‘achievements’ is he facing violent protestors in every village.”