Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, August 30
When highly decorated Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sunil Kumar retired last, he had not envisaged Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had a new task for him.
The 1987-batch officer met the JDU president and chief minister Nitish Kumar after his retirement and wished to be appointed a member of the State Human Rights Commission. He retired as chairman-cum-managing director of the Bihar state police housing corporation.
His predecessors in IPS, R R Prasad, Neelmani, and P K Thakur are members in the commission.
“Why don’t you join politics and serve the people,” as the response from Nitish Kumar. The chief minister already had a task and also a ticket for the IPS officer to become public representative.
On Saturday, Sunil Kumar joined the JDU and was immediately offered to contest the assembly elections from Bhorey in Gopalganj district.
Known as a competent police officer even during the regime of Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, Kumar comes from a dalit community. He was senior SP of Patna and Gaya besides holding several important assignments during the 15 years of NDA rule too.
The move of Nitish Kumar is seen as an effort to consolidate the dalit vote bank. After all, it accounts to 16 per cent of electorate in Bihar. There were 21 castes identified as Mahadalits and only Paswans as dalits. But, before the elections, Paswans too have been included among the Mahadalits.
JDU leadership wants to prove there are other dalit leaders in the NDA than Paswans. For, it is upset over the frequent attacks from the LJP president, Chirag Paswan on the chief minister. He is attacking the state government and claiming Bihar government did nothing for the welfare of the flood affected people its performance to fight Corona was also very poor.
Nitish Kumar’s sudden swing towards the dalit leaders before the elections is aimed at checking Chirag’s influence on the dalit vote bank.
Former chief minister Jeetan Ram Manjhi is also set to join NDA. He met Nitish kumar at his 1, Anney Marg residence here yesterday and discussed political situation in the state and role of the dalits in the coming assembly elections. Manjhi alleged RJD always neglected him. He will rejoin Nitish tomorrow.
While Sunil Kumar is from the Chamar caste, Manjhi is from the Musahar community.
Last week, industries minister and former president of the All India Dhobi Mahasabha Shyam Rajak had deserted JDU and joined RJD. He along with two other dalit leaders, Uday Narain Chaudhury, a former speaker of Bihar assembly and Ramai Ram, a former president of JDU held a joint press conference and alleged Nitish Kumar was anti-dalit and exploited them only for votes.
The dalit leaders in JDU Ashok Chaudhiry, Santosh Kumar Nirala and Lallan Paswan swung into action and claimed “there is no leader in the country except Nitish Kumar who respected and loved dalits.”
Dalit leaders in JDU recall Nitish Kumar had given reservations for dalits in the panchayati raj system and also in the sub-ordinate judicial services
After joining JDU, Sunil Kumar said he was influenced by the hard work and pro-dalit approach of the chief minister. His brother Anil Kumar is a MLA from the Congress and was twice member in Rajya Sabha.
His third brother is an IFS officer and posted at Geneva. The IPS officer’s father Chandrika Ram was a member of the Constituent assembly and minister in Bihar.
