The unseemly face-off between Bihar Assembly Speaker and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vijay Kumar Sinha and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the State Assembly over the alleged “misbehaviour” towards Mr. Sinha by police officials in Lakhisarai may have been settled with the transfer of a police official but locals say political control over Lakhisarai is the real reason behind the spat. Mr. Sinha has represented Lakhisarai in the State Assembly for three consecutive terms now whereas Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) president and a close aide of the Chief Minister represents the constituency in Parliament.
“The police and other district officials are said to be close to the local MP here [Mr. Singh] and they choose to ignore others like Mr. Sinha, who has been elected as BJP MLA from here for the last three consecutive terms and is Speaker of the State Assembly now. This has been the real cause of tensions between Mr. Sinha and Mr. Kumar,” a local political leader told The Hindu preferring anonymity, he quipped, for “obvious reasons”. A senior Lakhisarai-based journalist too admitted that “there has been power struggle going on between these two leaders to politically control Lakhisarai”.
Both Mr. Sinha and Mr. Singh hail from the upper caste Bhumihar community and Lakhisarai is a Bhumihar-dominated constituency.
