Buta stint: Few highs, mostly lows

When people look back at Sardar Buta Singh8217;s stay in Patna8217;s Raj Bhavan, they remember mostly the controversies he got embroiled i...

When people look back at Sardar Buta Singh8217;s stay in Patna8217;s Raj Bhavan, they remember mostly the controversies he got embroiled in. Yet, in the 14 months that he was there, there were moments when the dour governor seemed to have got the better of his opponents and of the state of affairs.

From May 23, 2005 when President8217;s rule was imposed in the state till assembly elections were notified, Bihar was under Buta8217;s care. In this short span, his two sons, Lovely and Sweety, as they were fondly called, became names well-known in the corridors of power.

They quickly replaced Laloo Yadav8217;s infamous brothers-in-law, Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Yadav. Lovely and Sweety were talked of as the alternative power centres, calling the shots in Bihar8217;s officialdom.

The two names hogged the headlines after a trust run by Lovely8217;s wife organised a cricket match between veterans from Indian and Pakistan in April last year. Soon after, they were sent a notice by the state commercial taxes department for not submitting the accounts of the match and their charisma diminished.

Those were the days when Buta had a falling out with Laloo and inched closer to Ram Vilas Paswan. And whatever the Rashtriya Janata Dal might have had to say about it, the Bhojpuri music industry was quick to recognise where the new power lay. It came out with an album titled Buta Ke Khoonta Gad Gayeel Buta has stuck his pole in Bihar, which had the governor in giggles. 8216;8216;This shows I have become popular,8217;8217; Buta beamed.

The initial days of President8217;s rule came as a pleasant relief to the people and Buta won wide appreciation for several steps he took to put Bihar back on track. Among his most ardent admirers then was Paswan.

After the last assembly elections threw up a hung House, the Governor was back in the limelight, only to have his thunder stolen by Laloo, who is it alleged succeeded in pressuring him into dissolving the Assembly to halt the National Democratic Alliance in its track. Perhaps unwilling to let power slip through his fingers, Buta too recommended the dissolution of the Assembly.

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Then the governor got into a spat with Chief Secretary G S Kang, who proceeded on long leave, citing his 8216;8216;bypassing8217;8217; by Buta and his adviser Arun Pathak as the reason. The Sardar8217;s first humiliation came when he had to break protocol and visit Kang8217;s house to assuage his feelings. The Chief Secretary returned to his job all right but only after he got a blanket assurance from Buta that his position as the top bureaucrat would not be compromised.

From then on, Buta did not have much to crow about. When he finally quit on Republic Day, he was a lonely man. Even Laloo, who everyone believes manipulated Raj Bhavan for his own political purposes, hailed Buta8217;s resignation.