The news was really tragic. Not only the entire state but the chief minister himself was shocked to know that the legislator, Raj Kishor Kesri, was stabbed to death by the lady principal of a school, Rupam Pathak. The reason she gave for taking this extreme step was even more appalling. She alleged that the MLA and his aide repeatedly raped and blackmailed her and that now they had an eye on her teenaged daughter.

The BJP supporters present at the MLA’s house in Purnea almost lynched her. The police not only arrested her but also got Navlesh Pathak, the editor of a local weekly, arrested as he dared to do a story against the MLA way back in May 2010.
The deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, called Rupam a blackmailer immediately after the killing of his party MLA. The women’s rights groups went on warpath against him and sought his dismissal. They said that Rupam was forced to commit this crime in self-defence.
The killing sent shiver down the spine of the elected representatives. The state government increased the security of MLAs, MLCs and ministers.
On March 22 the state government once again organized a grand Bihar Diwas function. The state entered its 100th year of existence.
In the summer the state witnessed one of the bloodiest panchayat elections in the post-independence history. Not only male, but even female candidates and supporters were killed in the run up to election and in the post-election violence. The post-panchayat election violence continued with four people losing their lives in Bodh Gaya block of Gaya district just over a week back.
Notwithstanding people’s anger over water and power crises, big jams on Mahatma Gandhi Setu, on NH between Patna andBakhtiarpur, and G T Road in Sasaram for days, protest in Janata Darbar all over the state, the ruling NDA won all the by-elections held in the year. What is strange is that family-rule reigned supreme in the allocation of tickets. While Kesri’s widow won the Purnea by election, Kavita Singh, the daughter-in-law of late Jagmato Devi, and son of late minister Hari Prasad Sah, both got re-elected on the Janata Dal (United) tickets.
The case of Kavita Singh is unique. When MLA Jagmato Devi died Nitish asked her son Ajay Singh, against whom a number of case of heinous crimes are pending, to get married so that he could give ticket to his bride. Ajay obeyed his master’s order and got married during the Pitripaksha Mela, though it is considered inauspicious in Hindu religion.
The year also saw the confiscation of houses of an IAS officer, S S Verma, and a clerk in treasury department, Girish Kumar. Schools were opened in them.
The Right to Service Act and the Bihar Lokayukta Act 2011 were passed this year.
In the last week of the year Janata Dal (United) held a two-day camp of the MLAs, MLCs in Rajgir. The chief minister tried his best to convince the legislators that his decision to scrap the MLA/MLC Local Area Development Fund early this year was a right decision. But most elected representatives appeared far from convinced.
A small news appeared in a section of media on the last week of the year that Rupam Pathak is ill and had to be hospitalized.
On the last day of the year the chief minister returned to Patna from his Sewa Yatra in Aurangabad, where as elsewhere he faced widespread protest from the people. On the eve of his visit to Aurangabad Maoists pasted posters on the government buildings warning him not to visit the district. Though nothing untoward happened during the Yatra the posters exposed the failure of the intelligence.

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