Banka misses socialists like Limaye and Fernandes to raise local issues

BANKA: The voters of Banka parliamentary constituency feel sad about the now dried up river Chandan, which used to supply water to the town and its adjoining areas in the district. They feel more helpless because no one seems interested in taking up the cause and reviving the river.
Some of them think had socialist stalwarts like Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes been around, they would have certainly taken up the cause of the locals with the higher-ups regarding the urgent need to revive the river.Limaye and Fernandes had contested parliamentary election from Banka in the 1970s and 1980s respectively.
“River Chandan finds mention in the Hindu mythology,” Dr Amarendra, a retired teacher from Baunsi College here said. “Yes, I think the socialists of the yesteryears would have taken up the cause of the locals regarding this river. They used to have their eyes and ears tuned to the ground. The local people have no solution to the drying up of the river and don’t even know as to what is to be done to revive it. The situation has become very acute. The water table everywhere has gone down. What is more worrisome is that this does not seem to be an issue in this parliamentary election,” he said.
It’s a different matter that the candidates in the fray – sitting RJD MP Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav, two-time former MP and Belhar MLA Giridhari Yadav (JDU) and another former local MP Putul Kumari Singh, wife of former Union minister late Digvijay Singh — belong to the ‘Samajwadi pariwar’.
Among the socialist stalwarts, Madhu Limaye fought the election thrice and won twice. First time he had contested and won the seat in the 1973 byelection, and then repeated the feat in the 1977 general election, defeating former CM Chandrashekhar Singh. However, he lost in 1980 amid “bring back Indira Gandhi” slogan.
George Fernandes, who died last year, had contested the seat twice in the 1985 and 1986 byelections, but lost on both the occasions. Amid fears of poll rigging, his contest had become a national issue.
As an elderly socialist Jawahar Mandal (65) from Khiridand in Sanhola block of Bhagalpur district recalled it on telephone, there were still half a dozen of the old socialists alive – Ganesh Dutt and Dayanand Goswami, among several others – who had campaigned for both Limaye and Fernandes.
“Yes, if the two would have been around, they would have certainly taken up the local issues. We need leaders like them. They were of that mould – people’s leaders. We have separated ourselves from their kind of politics and are not active now. This formula of social equations and poll arithmetic do not enchant us,” Mandal said.
In fact, with such being the case, despondency is around on the issue of river Chandan. As the locals see it, just a decade ago, it used to be an important perennial river and supplied water not only to the people of this town but also to thousands of farmers for irrigation purposes. The perennial nature of the river kept the water table recharged. Now this river has dried up. Its bed has been stripped of sand for building purposes. In result, the river has been reduced to just a seasonal river that becomes alive and also takes menacing form in rainy season. Otherwise, its bed remains dead all through the year, like a parched, sand stripped, dry land.