Thursday, Mar 27, 2014
Patna: Slain Ranvir Sena chief Barmeshwar Singh Mukhia was blamed for orchestrating dozens of caste-based riots in India’s Bihar state but now his son Indu Bhushan has jumped into the election race, trying his luck very first time in politics.
Bhushan’s entry will raise the stakes in the already tightly contested Bihar elections.
Bhushan, who heads the All-India Nationalist Farmers’ Organisation, had initially said he would contest in Ara, his home Lok Sabha constituency. However, on Wednesday he filed his papers from the Patliputra seat as a nominee of the Desi Kisan Party, where he will face some Yadav titans.
“Farmers are the soul of India yet they remain on the margins. There is just no one to take care of them and hence I have decided to fight for their rights,” said Bhushan who reached the office of the Retuning Officer riding a tastefully-decked bullock cart to file his papers.
He said he decided to contest the polls to bring in practical changes in the life of farmers, daily wage earners and low-income groups.
“I am the son of a farmer and will fight for right of farmers,” he claimed.
In 2004, Bhushan’s late father contested the polls as an independent candidate from the Ara seat and lost ,although he garnered a large number of votes.
He was killed in June 2012 by unidentified assailants while on a morning stroll.
Ranvir Sena, a private militia of upper caste landlords, is blamed for executing scores of massacres in the south-central Bihar in the 90s which earned Mukhia the sobriquet of a “butcher”.
In all the massacres carried out by the Sena men, the victims were the Dalits (lower caste Hindus) or poor. The Sena had come into existence to avenge the killing of upper caste members by the Maoists.
The fear of caste wars gripped Bihar again recently when Maoists killed seven villagers, all allegedly related to the Sena, in a landmine blast in Aurangabad district but the state administration quickly moved to prevent an escalation of the situation.
The latest killing was said to be in retaliation to a spate of court acquittals for Sena men in four massacre cases, in which a total of 123 people were killed.
The Patna High Court acquitted all the accused persons in Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre (58 villagers were killed), Miyanpur massacre (34 villagers killed), Bathani-Tola massacre (21 villagers killed) and Nagari massacre in which 10 villagers had been killed by the Sena men.
By Lata Rani Correspondent
Gulf News 2014. All rights reserved.
