Ominous echo of 'tsunami' rattles Bihar politicos

PATNA, Feb 17 (UNI): More than a month after it slammed the southerncoast of India, tsunami has its echo, loud, clear and ominous, in the faraway land-locked state of Bihar.

Only the context has changed as 'tsunami' is being talked about with great passion in this volatile state, now in the midst of a tempestuous elecoral contest, with a distinct political underpinning.

The term tsunami has emerged as a metaphor for "political destruction" as party leaders, contestants and their supporters are using the expression, be it in the mainland or the interiors of Bihar, to browbeat and decimate their opponents at the hustings.

"Lalooji tsunamia ke tarah apne virodhiyon ko hit karenge (Lalu Prasad will flatten his political opponents like a tsunami)," says 60-year-old Ramparvesh Yadav, a diehard supporter of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

A resident of Raghopur, the Yadavs-dominated constituency of Chief Minister Rabri Devi in Vaishali district, Ramparvesh, his grizzly white moustache swaying in the afternoon breeze blowing across the Ganges, speaks with a tremendous gusto.

"Lalooji samundari aandhi hain, unke samne koi tik nahin sakta (Lalu Prasad is like a sea storm which will blow away everyone who challenges his authority," he asserts.

Ramparvesh is perhaps not aware that opponents of the RJD are also using the tsunami metaphor against the party.

They include BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan and leaders of the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

"A tsunami-like wave is perceptible against the 'Terror Raj' unleashed during the 15-year-old RJD regime.

People, especially the youth, are determined to throw the Lalu-Rabri regime with the force of a gale," said Mahajan, addressing a meeting in the state capital.

Apparently, the RJD supremo, whose peculiar rustic style of functioning triggers both hatred and fierce loyalty, is being viewed by his supporters and detractors against the backdrop of the terrifying geographical phenomenon that hit southern coastal India and South Asian and South-East Asian countries on December 26.

Lalu Prasad, who is trying to snub the exit polls predicting a tough time for his party, uses a different geographical metaphor in his favour.

"Rajya mein 'laltenmai' chunavi aandhi chal rahi hai.

Isme sab bah jayenge, chahe woh hamare virodhi hoan, votekatba hoan ya electronic or print media ke exit poll hoan," asserts the RJD president.

(A strong electoral gale in favour of RJD's lantern is blowing across the state which will sweep away its political opponents, vote splitters (Samajwadi Party) and the exit polls of electronic and print media.) LJP leaders, however, are singing a different tune.

"RJD ke lalten ki batti bujhne ko hain kyonki aam janta ke aakrosh ki aandhi bah rah hai (The light of RJD's lantern is flickering and will be extinguished by the storm of poular discontent)," they assert.

However, there are also some constituencies like Darbhanga Rural and Manigachi in Mithilanchal, a region known for recurrent floods, where people are drawing parallels between last year's floods and the recent tsunami.

The flood-hit people in Darbhanga district, once a seat of high-brow Brahmins and a former stronghold of the Congress, are seething with anger, incensed over the reports of massive aid to the tsunami-hit victims in south India.

"Please do not take us wrong.

We are not sulking over the massive national initiative for providing aid to the tsunami victims.

The reports of relief down south have only made us aware of what the government could have done for us but it had not," says Shrawan Jha, a bookshop owner at Ujjan in Darbhanga district.

As the fury of the victims of Bihar's owm tsunami has travelled with an ominous force to the polling booths, political leaders are apprehensive of its fall-out.

Last year's floods in the Mithilanchal region, being viewed as the most calamitous in recent times, had flattened homes, destroyed crops and livestocks and claimed over 200 lives.

"Instead of grains and medicines, we got bullets from the district administration.

Tsunami-like tragedies, though not of the magnitude of the one that hit the southern coast, take place every year in our region.

But the insensitive government gave us not relief, but bullets," says Jagmohan Mandal, a voter in the Darbhanga (Rural) constituency.

Mandal points out that last year's floods were as devastating as the one in 1954.

"The government had promised us 25 kg rice as a flood relief measure.

The delay in its supply brought people on the streets, and police fired bullets on us," he recalls, the bitter memory of the event rankling in his mind.

The grudge of Vijay Chaudhari, who runs a roadside eatery on the outskirts of Manigachi in Darbhanga district, is that political leaders, be it from the ruling or the opposition parties, made no sincere effort to "wipe out tears from our eyes." Mithilanchal region had already witnessed polling during the second phase on February 15.

Some of the elected representatives in the region, including sitting RJD legislator Lalit Yadav (Manigachi) and Welfare Minister Pitambar Paswan (Darbhanga Rural), are hoping that the undercurrent of unrest would be neutralised by strong caste equations.

But some electors in the region are quick to add that the devastating deluge that visited the region "opened up the floodgates of discontent" that washed away the Congress governments both in the state and at the Centre.

The "political tsunami" in Bihar is still brewing in the electoral cross-currents.

How it bursts forth on the Day of Reckoning, February 27, is till now largely in the realm of speculation.