Ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Modi regime has been desperate to destabilise every non-BJP government and gain the maximum possible direct control over every lever of governance and administration. Another major target has been to break the ranks of the growing unity of non-BJP parties under the banner of the INDIA bloc and wean away leaders and parties to the BJP/NDA fold. The game plan succeeded in Bihar with Nitish Kumar's return to the NDA but was checkmated in Jharkhand despite the arrest of Hemant Soren. And in the Union Territory of Chandigarh the BJP's act of stealing the mayor election by getting the presiding officer to perpetrate a brazen fraud in counting backfired miserably. The Supreme Court termed it a murder of democracy and it is not difficult to guess the higher-ups who must have designed and approved this murder plot.
The government has been known to have been using central agencies like the ED, CBI and Income Tax department as political weapons to coerce a section of opposition into submission and persecute the rest. The Modi government has now started weaponising the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur sealed the deal with Nitish Kumar, Bharat Ratna for Chaudhary Charan Singh became an excuse for the RLD to cross over for INDIA to NDA. Renowned agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan was also awarded Bharat Ratna even as farmers demanding implementation of Swaminathan Commission recommendations continue to face tear gas shells, barbed wires and concrete barricades leading to the death of young protester Shubh Karan Singh and loss of vision of several farmers.
Defying this terror campaign to suppress the people and break the unity of the opposition, the people's movement is asserting itself on every front and on every burning issue. The farmers' movement has once again started gathering momentum, young India is on the road for jobs, various segments of workers and employees have intensified struggles for wage increase and restoration of old pension scheme, and opposition parties have begun firming up seat-sharing arrangements. After his latest political somersault Nitish Kumar has become the most discredited political figure in Bihar and popular anger against the BJP-JDU reunion will propel Bihar forward in the battle to defeat the Modi regime in the coming elections. The conviction of young CPI(ML) leader Manoj Manzil and 22 other peasant and agricultural labour activists of Bhojpur on fabricated charges in the Badgaon case and the consequent disqualification of Manoj Manzil who had won from Agiaon(SC) Assembly seat securing more than 60% of the polled vote will only reinforce the fighting spirit and resolve of the oppressed and deprived millions in Bihar.
