Patna: The Patna floods have thrown up an unlikely hero. For years, former MP Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, was the dreaded don-turned-politician, symptomatic of all that was wrong with politics in Bihar.
He has, however, emerged from the flood crisis with his reputation enhanced, while winning himself a slew of admirers in water-logged Patna and embarrassing the ruling JD(U)-BJP government. Yadav has no base in Patna, having lost the last Lok Sabha elections from Madhepura, some six hours from the capital, but, armed with a team of volunteers, he has reached out to flood-hit victims in the city throughout the crisis.
“He was the only politician visible. He was standing with us and helping us by giving us water, food packets and even helping the aged to get to safer places,” said Devyani Tiwari who lives in an apartment in Patna’s Rajendra Nagar.
“The help he extended to people was not just for photo ops,” said a dentist residing in Kankarbagh. “He and his volunteers were moving in a tractor and getting down to help the people. Their feet were fungus infected.”
One just has to just scan social media to realise the gratitude the flood victims have for Yadav, with their abuse reserved for local BJP leaders and MLAs who were missing during the crisis.
On Tuesday, Yadav was in the Patna City area holding a medical camp as the city struggled with a dengue crisis with 300 cases reported so far.
“During the last week, I must have visited hundreds of houses. The floods have blurred the line between the rich and poor. The rich and well-to-do had money. But they did not have milk to give to their children,” Yadav told ThePrint.
“I even supplied milk powder and food to the attendants in the house of deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi who left them. The BJP has represented urban Patna for the last 30 years and yet they left people at God’s mercy.”
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Tejashwi, BJP absent
Patna has always been the citadel of the BJP — even in the 2015 assembly polls the party won five of the urban seats of Patna Saheb. Yet its MLAs were not visible at the time of crisis. Only Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad visited flood-hit areas, but just for a day.
The BJP’s only silver lining is that the leader of opposition, the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, was also absent and is in Haryana to show solidarity with his brother-in-law who is contesting polls. His only contribution was attacking Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the prolonged water-logging.
It has not gone down well with his party colleagues.
“This is third time in a year that Tejashwi has been absent when the state faced a crisis,” said a frustrated RJD MLA. “Earlier, he was in Delhi when the encephalitis deaths rocked the state. He was absent when Bihar faced the first phase of floods in August. Now he is absent when the state capital is reeling under severe water-logging. He should have done what Pappu Yadav has done to gain the support of the people and challenge the BJP in its citadel.”
The flood victims are also upset with other leaders for their apathy.
CM Kumar is being criticised because although he has given Patna several flyovers, he has made urban planning a low priority as the chief executives of the Patna Municipal Corporation have been frequently transferred, not giving them time to settle down.
The other person in the firing line is his deputy, the BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi, whose own neighbourhood was inundated. Modi and his family had to be rescued and shifted to his official residence. The urban development ministry has been with the BJP since 2005.
Urban Development Minister Suresh Sharma has also faced flak for staying in Muzaffarpur most of the time. Patna Mayor Sita Sahu, also from the BJP, has become the butt of jokes after she admitted that the Patna Municipal Corporation does not have a map of the drainage system of the state capital.
“Then what was the PMC claiming it had cleaned up before the monsoon?” asked Sheeta Sneha, resident of Kankarbagh.
Bitterness between BJP and JD(U)
The waterlogging in Patna has created much bitterness between ruling allies BJP and JD(U) — to the extent that not a single prominent BJP leader shared stage with CM Nitish Kumar at the Ravan Vadh function Tuesday evening.
The annual event held at Gandhi Maidan is attended by thousands of people and leaders cutting across party affiliation every year.
On Tuesday, however, even Governor Phagu Chauhan did not turn up. Chauhan, who was to be the chief guest, skipped the function citing health issues.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, the only Bihar BJP leader to strongly back the CM so far, was absent too as his close associates said he was in Bengaluru. Local MLA Nitin Navin said Modi had to take a relative to hospital and could not attend the function.
The absence of the BJP leaders did not go unnoticed.
“What happened to the BJP leaders? None of them turned up at Gandhi Maidan. Should not Ravan be killed?” Dr Ajay Alok, former JD-U spokesperson, tweeted in Hindi.
क्या हो गया @BJP4Bihar ? कोई गांधी मैदान में रावण वध में नहीं आया ? रावण वध नहीं करना था क्या ?
— Dr Ajay Alok (@alok_ajay) October 8, 2019
According to insiders, Bihar BJP is angry over the response of the district administration during the intense waterlogging in BJP’s core support areas such as Kankarbagh and Rajedra Nagar. “The pleas for relief and rescue work was unheeded. The district administration started it late as a result of which our MLAs and leaders became villains,” said a senior BJP leader.
Notably, while CM Nitish Kumar had called the waterlogging a natural calamity taking place due to intense rains, BJP leaders including its state chief Sanjay Jaiswal said it was man-made as he criticised the administrative failures.
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