2021: Covid, politics dominate eventful year in Bihar

Bihar had its administrative capabilities severely tested during the year as a devastating second wave of Covid-19 overwhelmed its health infrastructure and massive hooch tragedies flew in the face of its much touted prohibition law.

Politics, as always, occupied centrestage in the state whose economic backwardness was underscored by the NITI Aayog, much to the annoyance of the Nitish Kumar government which felt its efforts to bring about a change for the better should also have been taken into account.

The state, which was relatively less severely affected by the coronavirus last year, felt the heat this summer when its active caseload exploded and death toll shot up by six times in just a couple of months.

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The contagion, in its fury, demonstrated its levelling potential as those killed in the second surge included many of the high and the mighty, including the chief secretary and members of the legislature.

The helplessness of brawn before the microbe was all too evident when former MP Mohd Shahabuddin, whose strongarm politics struck terror well beyond the frontiers of the state, died serving prison term in the national capital and was buried in Kotla, with hardly anyone from his notorious army of supporters around to pay the last respects.

The photograph of a Delhi labourer talking over phone to his family back home in Bihar's Begusarai, his face contorted with grief, became the defining image of the migrant crisis triggered by last year's lockdown.

Disturbing images of rotting, bloated corpses floating on the Ganga in Buxar symbolised the devastation wrought by the second wave which brought the young and the robust to their knees as mercilessly as the old and frail.

The Indian Medical Association put Bihar at the top in terms of the number of doctors who fell prey to the coronavirus, bringing into sharp focus the lack of protective gear for the frontline Covid warriors. Sub-optimal health facilities continued to stick out like a sore thumb many months later as more than 20 people were left groping in darkness after losing their eyesight to cataract surgeries held at private hospital in Muzaffarpur where, according to preliminary investigation, the operation theatre was not properly disinfected.

Buoyed by the cool autumn breeze, people decided they had enough of Covid restrictions and plunged into Durga Puja, Deepawali and Chhath festivities, often throwing caution to the winds.

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With drinking, like gambling, having become a forbidden pleasure on account of prohibition, people seemed to have taken to spurious liquor during Deepawali in a big way.

More than 40 hooch deaths in West Champaran, Gopalganj, Muzaffarpur and Samastipur districts cast a long shadow on the festival of lights.

The chief minister commanded the police force to ensure illegal brewing within Bihar and smuggling of liquor from other states is stopped forthwith.

The men in uniform seem to have lost their marbles in the face of the enormity of the task at hand. They went into an overdrive, rounding up visitors from outside the state and conducting searches at wedding parties, causing outrage.

The pace of the ever running political mill in the state remained undiminished all the while.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar demonstrated amply that electoral losses suffered in assembly polls last year notwithstanding, he had aces up his sleeve.

In the beginning of the year, he sprang a surprise by giving up the post of JD(U) national president though his hold over the party was evident as the top post seamlessly went from one trusted lieutenant to another.

Now in the seventh decade of his life, Kumar, who has become the longest serving chief minister of Bihar, showed the ability to swallow his pride with the re-induction of Upendra Kushwaha, his former protégé who had become a venom spewing detractor.

Kushwaha, who merged his RLSP with the JD(U), has been rewarded with a berth in legislative council and is expected to keep Koeris firmly behind his boss, who seeks to hold his own against an aggressive BJP. The chief minister has repeatedly shown his numerically stronger ally that he is ready to fight it out on issues like caste census and special category status.

The saffron party is torn between the twin compulsions of going with the line adopted by the Centre, which it rules, and backing the chief minister with whom it shares power.

Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP came apart in less than a year of his death. A split engineered by his younger brother Pashupati Kumar Paras has left his son and heir apparent Chirag Paswan in the lurch.

In the opposition camp, old allies Congress and RJD fought and parted ways for the umpteenth time. The Congress, however, showed some nerve after the induction of firebrand leader Kanhaiya Kumar and vowed to go it alone in the 2024 general elections.

The state assembly celebrated the centenary of its building with much fanfare, though the year in the House will also be remembered for the unsavory episode of the Speaker being held hostage by members of the RJD-led opposition who had to be shooed away by baton-charging policemen.

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