Muzaffarpur hit-and-run shreds Nitish's prohibition and politics to pieces

The Muzaffarpur hit-and-run case has exposed more than one deficiency in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's administration in the state. School authorities must be held accountable for showing such callous disregard to the safety of students, but the more sinister aspects of the case must be highlighted.

Arrest warrant has reportedly been issued against Manoj Baitha, the BJP leader who is not just the owner of the vehicle involved but was also reportedly driving it.

However, the long arm of the law is yet to catch up with him, amid reports that he may have fled to Nepal. All this happened in the last two days that the ruling BJP took to move on from denying his association with the party to admitting it and suspending his membership for 6 years.

In the time that the BJP took to devising its strategy to deal with the crisis, Baitha, reportedly heavily injured in the accident, managed to get himself treated in a private clinic in Muzaffarpur, went home, met his family members, took his belongings, arranged for transportation and fled for Nepal.

The sequence of events clearly demonstrates the kind of network that Baitha has. That network could have been responsible for the supply of liquor to him under whose influence he allegedly was while driving on that ill-fated day.

BJP and Nitish Kumar must tell the people of Bihar how is that a leader of a party in power had access to liquor in a state where prohibition is in place. Kumar has tried hard to portray that his administration is being strict in enforcing prohibition, with the police regularly cracking down on violators.

How is it that a BJP leader was able to escape all this? The case has torn to shreds Kumar's tall claims about the policy and his attempts to prove that he is serious about enforcing it. If Bihar police doesn't arrest Baitha soon, Kumar risks a major setback.