Popular Indian Chief Minister creates controversy

An already popular Chief Minister of Indian eastern state of Bihar seems to have generated a storm by announcing sops for those who participated in the country’s biggest movement since its independence.

Hailed as a change-maker whose development agenda made waves in the just concluded parliamentary elections in the world’s largest democracy and the one who is wooed even by the now-in-command Congress Party, Nitish Kumar has already transformed a state which until now was described by the international media as 'India's most lawless state'.

Taking over the reins just a couple of years back, Kumar is credited with having built long-delayed bridges, re-laid roads that had ceased to exist, ensured that teachers and doctors work in their respective centers, and kept crime under control.

Now his government has decided to pay tribute to a socialist leader – Jayaprakash Narayan, who launched in the 1970s the 'Total Revolution' in India. This movement is considered the biggest political movement in India which, beginning in Bihar state, spread all over the country and resulted in the first non-Congress coalition taking office in New Delhi in 1977.

It has been now announced that those who were under imprisonment, killed or injured in police firing and the activists who lost their lives behind the bars during this movement would be honored and felicitated. There will be financial assistance from the government on monthly basis, besides facilities like free travel in government buses and free treatment in government hospitals.

Interestingly, the ‘Total Revolution’ was targeted against the then ruling Congress Party’s ‘mis-rule’, which political outfit is again at the helms. Analysts say the decision to reward those who participated in the agitation some 35 years ago would make the Congress Party fume and would also set a bad precedent.