Zero Hour in Parliament starts at 12 noon during which members raise matters of importance, especially those that cannot be delayed. Nobody knows which issue a member would raise during this hour. As a result, questions so raised without prior notice may be of no importance.

I am presenting one such imaginary situation for the readers of Bihar Times.

One day, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha asked the member (M.P.) who emerged to speak at Zero hour, for what purpose the gentleman rise. The member replied, to bring to attention the decadence of Bihar. The Speaker said, “The last I heard things were better in Bihar“. The gentleman insisted nonetheless to make the speech and the Speaker grudgingly allowed.

As soon as the gentleman began his speech, a large number of members from Bihar rose to protest. There was pandemonium in the house. The Speaker averted the possibility of fistfight and shoe throwing with the help of sergeants of arms and asked the members to let the gentleman proceed.

Purported speech verbatim.

Madam Speaker, before there was JD (U), there was Janata Dal and I was the man everybody looked-for. The Party was dying everywhere else in the Country but, in Bihar, it was thriving because of me. I had some help from pseudo friends like George Fernandez and Nitish Kumar but they were envious of me. They did not like that I was so popular with the people. The party was in good shape until one day, out of despise, the man I appointed the President of JD, Sharad Yadav, turned against me. He expelled me from the party due to some fictitious charges of corruption. Perhaps he forgot that I was still the Chief Minister. Instead of quarreling with him, I defied him, floated a new party, and named it RJD. In fact, I owned the new party and limited the membership of its inner circle to just a few loyalists. The basic tenet of my party was to safeguard me, its President, from the vicarious designs of upper caste people who were in cahoots with my erstwhile friends and new enemies to dislodge me as Chief Minister.
I remember, Madam Speaker, once a senior member of the Legislative Assembly threw his chair on me to stop me from being profane during Assembly proceedings. Though he was Brahmin, I submitted to him as a gesture of respect. He advised me that to be a clever politician, I had to be tolerant. I took his suggestion as the paradigm of my life and abided by it. After that who does not know the story of my political triumph and my ingenuity to stay in office. I was unbeaten until the leaders of the Congress whom I taught how to muster majority and how to rule discarded me. Perhaps it is the nature of politics that friends and associates leave you to protect their own interest. Therefore, I do not feel bad that friends like Nitish, George, Sharad and Sonia deserted me and stabbed me in the back. However, may I put them on notice that soon they will learn who I am? I will show them that my leadership is intact and no amount of backbiting will deter me. They should know that if I had the capacity to make them tiger, I have the power to unmake them mouse.

Madam Speaker, in my life I took many decisions but the best decision I ever took was to exclude Brahmins, Rajputs, Bhumihars, Kayasthas and Banias from my party. First, they were too smart for me to include them in my circle of friends and secondly, I did not care for them. They belonged to the class of exploiters; and it would have been like taming the crocodile in the fishpond. Since they have been my nemesis and they will never accept me as the ruler. That is why; I kept them at bay and shunned them from my administration. What surprised me the most was that they were very indifferent about what I did to them? For some reason they did not blame me at all. On the contrary, they thanked me. When I asked them what the reason for thanking me was, they said, my snubbing them was the best impetus for them to become better doctors, engineers and other professional people. They found ways to leave Bihar to make names for themselves as scientists and s uccessful businessmen. As far as I am concerned, I did my best to stop them from getting government jobs but they stand out in both public and private sectors. I have not been able to figure out what powers do they have that I cannot shake them. What is mind-boggling is that the upper caste community does not have many legislatures in the assembly still nothing moves without them. They seem to be indestructible and omnipresent. Though their achievements are great for Bihar, I wish they were not the people of upper caste. Madam Speaker, it appears that they have nine lives and I am sorry that I could not eliminate the bastards. There is no doubt that they are here to stay but I want them to know that I am also here to wage my war against them.

Madam Speaker, they are my enemy. They continue to believe that I was the ringleader of the Fodder Scam. They refuse to accept my exoneration by the High court as outcome and claim that I bribed the Judge. They are so bold that they denounce me as the useless King of the Jungle and degrade me as the fake Messiah.
Madam Speaker, the story of the fodder scam was pure concoction. No body stole money and there was no scam. I know for fact because my uncle, my nephews, my brothers in law and father in law were involved in it. They told me that they bought many buffaloes and many calves and tones of fodder to feed them. Two of my brothers in law told me that when they did not find truck to t ransport the animals and fodder, they rounded up mopeds and motor cycles to transport them. They told me that they transported buffaloes on a moped and eight tones of fodder on a motorcycle. It was hard work but when they convinced me that they were successful businessmen, I made sent one to the Lok Sabha and other to the Rajya Sabha. Madam Speaker, it is a tragedy that in the guise of fodder scam many innocent lives have been destroyed. There was no reason to send any body to jail for something that was just the figment of imagination. The fodder scam was sham because the central government investigated it and found it be sham. I can state with certainty that the Fodder Scam was a made up story by some disgruntled politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats. The poor and the plebeians did not care about the scam; it was the rich and the powerful that made the outcry. The investigation was based on groundless allegations. My opponents claim that I siphoned money from Darunda treasury. I have never been to daranda in my life. How could have I gotten that much money from a little treasury office.
Madam Speaker, I wish to announce that my administration was free from corruption and I had no friends who were criminals. The people who worked for me and the people I associated were the men and women of impeccable character. If the crime was committed against the people unbeknownst to me, the upper caste people in collaboration with bureaucrats belonging to upper castes must have perpe trated it.

Madam Speaker, these Upper caste people have found Nitish as a succor. They control him and he is at their disposal. If Nitish thinks that he is the man of the masses, I have news for him. He is just a pawn in the hands of the upper castes. They parade him around like their servant. Perhaps Nitish has forgotten that I am the one who ruled the State for over two decades and brought progress and prosperity to Bihar. Had I not become the Chief Minister, the State would have gone to dogs. The Upper caste people would have subjugated the masses and Nitish would be working as vegetable gardener for them.

Madam Speaker, in the last election, Nitish lied about me. He lied that I was a selfish man and I did not care for anybody but myself. He even drove wedge between the Muslim community and me. The Modi guy talked about my wife to the people a lot and questioned her qualification. He said she and I were the prisoners of criminal empire and crime proliferated during our administration. If things were so bad why we were in power for so long. As for my wife, she was the incarnation of Durga as the Chief Minister. Without her, the people of Bihar would have died of starvation. She distributed all her wealth that her father had given to her as dowry and that was in crores. She even gave away all her clothes so that the people of Bihar would not walk naked. From Delhi, I sent her crores of rupees that I=2 0received as gift from railway contractors. She spent every penny on the people. A few crores here and a few crores there was just pocket change for her. You see Madam Speaker, my wife is not an ordinary housewife she is a very sophisticated woman. She is the embodiment of how a woman of Bihar should be. My wife was dear to her parents before her marriage and after marrying me, she became my dearest. I am proud of her. She is the mother of a dozen of my children. I am so proud of her that I wanted to give her a gift as Shah Jahan did to Noor Jahan. I could not build the Taj Mahal for her but I did better than that. One day I was alone in my bedroom. I asked to come to me with eyes closed. Her face became red as if she were a newly wed bride. I asked her to come closer and she came. First, she thought that I was playing with her, and then she asked me what I was did I really want. I said I loved her and wished to give her an extraordinary gift of my love. I asked her to open her eyes and she did. She did not see anything in my hand. She was disappointed. Then I announced to her that I was making her the Chief Minister. She became so passionate that she jumped erotically and landed in my lap. It was unusual for her to be that vibrant but she was. I kissed her, caressed her and embraced her. In the silence of our bedroom, all I could tell her was that I wanted to immortalize her. We were lost in the ambience of love and passion until20we walked out of the bedroom to announce to the people of Bihar that they had a New Chief Minister.

I remember Madam Speaker, how people reacted when my wife became the Chief Minister. They hailed her with sincere and universal delight. Hope prevailed that the woman who had her roots in the villages would do something for the State of the villages. She did not disappoint the people. Ask the people of Bihar they will tell you that she was the lady they revered as Chief Minister. Madam Speaker, the name of Bihar would have seized to exist had it not been for my wife and me. May I say that she demonstrated to the people that she could rule the State with the same vigor as I did?

Now the State of Bihar is in wrong hands. Nitish is doing what others failed to do. In a State like Bihar, you have to have guts to do things and Nitish lacks that. He does not have the same charisma as I had or my wife had. In fact, he is trying to do everything that we discarded. Look what he has done to Bihar. He has united the upper castes and divided the lower castes.

Your honor I speak in the name of the people of Bihar and vow to them that I will be back. I challenge Nitish to cross my path. I will crush him. If Nitish thinks that he can out do me, I have some news for him. Go to those Upper caste people and change your name to Nitish Singh. May be divorce your wife and marry a20Brahmin to become the Jamai of the Brahmin community. Do not tell me that I was corrupt and ruled the State like a megalomaniac. You are crazy and a disgrace to your community.
Your honor, Nitish blames me for everything. He asserts that my administration was oppressive and corrupt and the people of the State suffered from the indignation of poverty and crime. He even says that it was the shortcoming of democracy that I stayed in power. He argues that since I enjoyed the majority in the Legislative Assembly, I could not be ousted without loosing majority even if I was a criminal and an affront to the system. He further asserts that my wife and I were bums as leaders; and our constitution provided no provision to kick the bums out except when they lost the majority either by defection or by election. He also claims that I got the help of corrupt judges and wicked law enforcement officials to stay in power. Could I ask what rights does Nitish have to criticize the democratic institutions like judiciary and the public servants I appointed?

If Nitish thinks that, Paswan and I would come begging to him, he had better watch out. We will come to Bihar as victors to wrest away the power from him and we would prove to the people that were the real leaders not Nitish. Madam Speaker, Nitish would be gone forever unlike Ram Vilas and I who would be back on the saddle of Bihar government.

Such statements agitated the members of parli ament from Bihar. They demanded expunging of the speech from the recodes of the house. The Speaker announced that the gentleman indeed had caused loss of precious time of the House by his garrulous demagoguery. She also observed that the gentleman misused the privileges of Zero hour and obstructed the business of the House by prolixity of his speech. The Speaker instructed that the speech of the gentleman be expunged from the record and adjourned the house.

Comment

comments...

Very well written. Congratulations. Depicts the the plight of Bihar during the 15 years rule of the couple. The purported speech is the vituperation of a desperate politician who has been rejected by the people. The article indicates that Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Noor Jahan. Shah Jahn's wife was Mumtaz Mahal. Nitish does not have to divorce his wife. He is a widower.

Satya