PATNA: Two months ago, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked Ajay Singh, the JD(U) leader from Chhapra to get married immediately. The seat had fallen vacant after Jagmato Devi, the sitting MLA and Singh’s mother passed away. The son couldn’t be given the ticket as he had a criminal record. Thus Ajay Singh, the don of Chhapra, married as per his mentor’s wishes, and his bride, Kavita Singh, was given the ticket for Dharaunda Assembly seat. She won. But the Bihar government has now ordered the arrest of all men, who are ruling in the state by proxy, using their wives who have been elected to various governing bodies. The state’s Rural Works Minister, Bhim Singh, has ordered all Mukhiya Patis, Sarpanch Patis and Pramukh Patis to be arrested and jailed, if they attend any official meeting in place of their wives, or along with them.
A tragic irony of the situation is that the violence of last summer’s election has claimed the lives of many Mukhiyas and Sarpanches. Hence, most of the current lot of women elected to various posts in Bihar are widows.
Five years ago, the Nitish government had increased women’s reservation in urban and rural local bodies from 33 to 50 per cent. Women now hold 1,30,500 seats in local bodies in Bihar. The government’s diktat, banning proxy representatives, has led to resentment at the grassroots level. “Why is the state government not practicing this rule in the Assembly and Parliament? Tickets are being given to women who are novices in politics, either after the death of their husbands, or if the husband is legally ineligible to stand for the post, as in the case of Ajay Singh,” asked a local leader. There is a difference. Unlike in the case of panchayats, husbands cannot enter Assembly or Parliament by proxy.