On Nitish tour, protests from crowds and criticism from ally

On Saturday, while Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was addressing an Adhikar Yatra rally in Araria, pamphlets describing him as "ghrina ke pratik", or "symbol of hate", circulated at the venue. Two days earlier, his convoy had been attacked in Khagaria.

Neither of these incidents involved primary schoolteachers, a fraternity that had waved black flags at his previous half-dozen rallies in other parts of the state. Teachers had not been allowed entry to Saturday's venues, with the HRD department having cancelled leave on Anant Chaturdashi to keep them at their schools. In Kisanganj, the rally's stop on Sunday, teachers were directed to report on duty to block headquarters.

Following the protests from beyond the teaching fraternity, Nitish and other JD(U) leaders have blamed the RJD for hatching a conspiracy against him. Opposition leader Abdul Bari Siddiquei, on the other hand, has joked that Nitish had perhaps planned to "gauge the public mood to find out if JD-U can fight all 40 Lok Sabha seats on its own; the public rebuffed him".

The protests have come against a chief minister who heads a 206-strong coalition in an assembly of 243 members. But even a leader from the JD(U)'s coalition partner, the BJP, has come up with statistics that highlight what seems to be a fall in the government's popularity.

Uday Singh, the BJP's Purnia MP, conducted a survey in his Lok Sabha constituency to evaluate how the people rate the government's performance. He had the survey done by his "apolitical forum", Lok Sabha Vikas Parishad.

Out of 2,03,722 households covered, 39 per cent said electricity shortage was their biggest problem while 96 per cent were upset with the government for a liberal excise policy that allows retail liquor shops in villages, saying that liquor shops had been leading village youths astray and causing more cases of domestic violence.

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