DNA Edit: Nitish’s troubles – A bad flood can be politically debilitating

The worst floods in the last 50 years does not just wreak havoc on a state’s infrastructure. Its political fallout can be no less explosive. BJP’s Union minister for animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries, Giriraj Singh, has set the cat among the pigeons by stating that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar should shoulder the blame coming his way in the wake of Bihar floods. The worst-hit is capital Patna, where 1.6 million of its two million residents are battling water-logging, exposing the city’s poor drainage and infrastructure system. Horror stories are emerging of how residents were forced to live with no power or phone lines for two days as rising waters snapped communication lines and electricity supply. The showers in the city were the second heaviest in 50 years and the weather office said the bulk of the September’s rainfall was received in the past week. 

Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) has hit back at ally Giriraj Singh, a known Nitish baiter. It has said that ever since the JD (U)-BJP combine came to power in the state, the urban development portfolio has been with the BJP, the Mayor of Patna belongs to the BJP and so do the MPs representing the two Lok Sabha constituencies that cover the district since the 1990s. So why blame the JD (U)? Nitish, a politician, who plays his cards astutely, has been put on the back foot with the public discontent in the wake of water logging and accompanying miseries. More significant is the speculation, both in New Delhi and Patna, whether the BJP will walk out on him and whether Giriraj’s outburst is a pointer in that direction for state elections slated for October 2020? The only way out for Nitish to redeem himself is to pull Bihar out of its waterlogged state.