Patna: In what could be a huge setback to the ruling National Democratic Alliance in Bihar headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar, two front line Opposition parties — the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress — have decided to boycott the state government’s much flaunted “human chain” programme against dowry and child marriages.
The state government is scheduled to form the world’s longest human chain to highlight these social issues on January 21.
Authorities claim the human chain this time could be 13,600km long, some 100km longer than last year’s human chain.
The two opposition parties decided to boycott the government-sponsored human chain programme by holding separate meetings in Patna on Thursday evening. They said there is already a law in place to tackle these twin issues and hence there was no need to form a human chain.
“There is already a law in place to tackle the cases relating to dowry and child marriages yet the chief minister is wasting money and time on holding human chain programme. The only purpose of the chief minister is to polish his own image, rather causing awareness in the society,” parliamentarian and national president of Youth RJD Bulo Mandal told the media on Friday.
He added the RJD would have wholeheartedly supported the human chain programme if it was for seeking special category status to Bihar — an issue which remains unfulfilled and was strongly raised by the chief minister in the past. “What’s now preventing the chief minister from raising this issue afresh?” asked Mandal adding the RJD had already supported the government’s human chain against alcoholism last year.
The Congress also announced to boycott the human chain saying the official function was just aimed at diverting people’s attention from the real issues.
“There is total anarchy gripping the state. Severe sand crisis has been continuing for the last six months, labourers are migrating in search of jobs and poor people have been left at the mercy of god in this chilly winter while the government is busy forming human chain. This is sheer nonsense,” state Congress president Kaukab Quadri said.
The boycott decision by the two Opposition parties assumes significance as it was taken even after the BJP and the JD-U had appealed the main Opposition parties to participate in the human chain.
In a further setback, the Patna High Court has passed an order, asking the authorities not to victimise the schoolchildren who don’t participate in the human chain programme. The court order came after a local NGO filed a petition in the court alleging the schoolchildren were being pressurised to join the government’s campaign in this chilly winter.
Many teachers’ organisations too have threatened to boycott the human chain programme over various issues. The first among these is Bihar Secondary Teachers Struggle Committee (BSTSC) which has appealed to the teachers to boycott the govt campaign.
The BSTSC is angry at the way the state government has moved the Supreme Court against Patna High Court’s order asking for paying equal salary for equal work and then failed to clear the backlog of salary pending for the last five months.
“The state govt is victimising the contractual teachers in many ways. Hence we appeal them to boycott the govt campaign,” BSTSC’s media in-charge Santosh Srivastava has said.
The Teaching and Non-teaching Employee Union affiliated to state degree colleges too has decided to boycott the human chain over govt’s failure to clear the grant pending for the past seven years. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the union held on Tuesday, union’s state convener Rajiv Ranjan has told the media.
