• Kuldeep Jha

Communist Party of India Marxist–Leninist surprised many by registering its highest tally in over 30 years in Bihar by winning 12 of the 19 seats it contested. Communist parties in India have characteristics of Virus. They can’t survive on their own but multiply rapidly in shelter of other’s body. In this case Mahagathbandhan.

They were not even averse to the fact that it was RJD which mercilessly killed their brightest student leader Chandrashekar Prasad in 1997. Chandrashekar was bright in True Sense. He was not intellectually pedestrian and morally corrupt like Kanhaiyya Kumar, who initially wanted to contest 2019 election on RJD ticket but Lalu rightly thought he is worthless a nut.

Chandrashekar was academically bright. He left prestigious National Defence Academy (NDA) to pursue his passion, Politics. He is considered to be the most popular student union President JNU ever had. The AISA (All India Students’ Association), which wins JNU election almost every year, was almost single-handedly built by him.

After JNU, he moved to his home district Siwan in Biahr with the intention of working on the ground. He soon became too much of nuisance for the then Bihar CM and messiah of secularism Lalu Yadav. On 31 March 1997, he was assassinated by sharpshooters of RJD Bahubali Mohammad Shahabuddin, while addressing street corner meetings in Siwan.

After his assassination, the CPI (ML) alleged, “Several of our leaders and party workers have been murdered so far. Shahabuddin is the architect of the murder of Shyam Narayan and Chandrashekhar. Our party workers, who were present at the site of the murder, have identified the killers. They were Shahabuddin’s men.”

Ever agitated JNU students marched to Delhi’s Bihar Niwas and demanded Lalu Yadav speak to them. Police greeted them with bullets. Fascist BJP uses water cannons. What a demon BJP really is.A compensation of one lakh rupees was offered to the Prasad’s mother by the then PM of India I.K. Gujral, but she turned down the offer saying, “It will be an insult to accept money in exchange for my son. I curse those who have put a cost on my son’s life.” Mothers know no politics.

Not everyone though. Rohith Vemula’s mother alleged that Muslim League failed on Rs 20 lakh promise and said one of the two cheques she received bounced. But why should Muslim League pay her? What was their interest? We would never know.

But these minor issues of self-respect and honour never tend to bother modern Communists, who now crib that RJD did not give them enough seats or else they would have performed better.But what ideologically committed individual like Chandrashekar did was he sowed seed of Communism in masses and party is reaping benefits almost 23 years later in alliance with his killers, RJD. Small compromise to make for power, perhaps not a compromise at all.