In the midst of the first phase of the polls for the Bihar assembly elections, the opposition Grand Alliance (GA), comprising the RJD-Congress and left-wing parties, harshly criticized Prime Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday for the incident. of gunfire by Munger police, calling it brutal and a reflection of the state government’s utter inability to handle law and order.
GA leaders also demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remove Nitish Kumar’s government from office. The lawsuit came ahead of the three rallies Modi plans to hold in Darbanga, Muzaffarpur and Patna for the second phase of the BJP’s campaign for assembly elections.
“We want the Prime Minister to immediately remove this government, as there is a complete failure of law and order in the state,” GA leaders said.
On Monday night, a person identified as 18-year-old Anurag Poddar was killed and 27 others injured when police resorted to shooting after processionists during an idol dive in Munger clashed with police. The motive for the confrontation between police officers and processionists was said to be an altercation between revelers and local police late Monday night that initially resulted in a lathicharge charge and later a gunshot. The police have claimed that antisocial elements in the processions threw stones at the police, leading to clashes.
At a joint press conference in Patna, opposition leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, AICC Secretary General Randeep Singh Surjewala, and left-wing leaders, including CPI-ML (Liberation) senior leader Kavita Krishnan, They said the Munger incident was heartbreaking because the police shooting was totally misplaced.
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“What was Prime Minister Nitish Kumar, who has the housing portfolio, doing when the layoff was taking place? Who gave the police orders to become General Dyer in Munger? Tejashwi said, comparing the Munger incident to the infamous Jallianwala Bagh policeman who fired on a peaceful assembly in Amritsar on April 13, 1919.
Tejashwi said the administration has claimed that only one person died in the incident, while locals claim that the death toll in the firing was much higher. “The video clips of the incident that have reached the public domain are tragic and show how the police brutally beat the processionists in pursuit of them,” he said.
Congressional leader Surjewala was more eloquent in stating that the prime minister should remove the state government immediately considering how the police shot innocent people during an idol immersion procession. “Why is the Prime Minister silent on this issue?” he asked and said that people want justice for the 18-year-old deceased. “The videos of the deceased’s mother crying have moved people. Is this our culture that innocent people are targeted during a peaceful procession? ” I ask.
Kavita Krishnan of the CPI-ML also condemned the incident, calling it a clear example of increasing police brutality in the state. He also said that the state government had carried out such a brutal ethical charge in recent years against teachers and other contract workers during peaceful demonstrations to raise wages.
The GA has upped the ante against the Nitish Kumar government for rising crime, unemployment, and worker migration, highlighting them as the NDA government’s top failures in its tenure in power for more than a decade.
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