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| PANDIT BINODANAND JHA (17 APRIL 1900 - 01 AUGUST 1971) |
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| KRISHNA BALLABH SAHAY (31 DECEMBER 1898 - 03 JUNE 1974) |
Bihar Kesari’ Shri Krishna Sinha left for the heavenly abode on 31st January 1961. Bihar lost a prodigal son. Anugrah Narayan Sinha, who was the next important leader had pre-deceased Sri Babu. Krishna Ballabh Sahay and Shri Krishna Sinha's blue-eyed boy Mahesh Prasad Sinha had both lost the 1957 Assembly elections. Under this circumstance, Deepnarayan Singh was given the charge of caretaker Chief Minister pending the election of the new incumbent by the State Congress Legislative Party
In the meeting of the Congress
Legislature Party Krishna Ballabh Babu supported the candidature of Binodanand
Jha against Mahesh Prasad Sinha. Binodanand Jha got elected as the leader
and took the oath to the office of the Chief Minister of Bihar on 18th
February 1961, as the third incumbent to the position.
It may be mentioned here that there
was a time during the freedom struggle when both Krishna Ballabh Babu and
Binodanand Jha worked shoulder to shoulder and strengthened the Congress in the
Chhotanagpur region as they both belonged to the Chotanagpur region. Hazaribagh
was Krishna Ballabh Sahay’s political battleground while Santhal Pargana was
the birthplace of Binodanand Jha. There are numerous instances of the bonhomie
between these two leaders, as evident from the confidential fortnightly
despatches of the Chief Secretary, Bihar to the Home Secretary, Government of
India where the combined efforts of these two leaders in the freedom struggle
related activities have been prominently reported. In his report dated 1st
February 1936, W. B. Brett, the Chief Secretary, Bihar reported about the
decision of the provincial Congress Committee to constitute a Committee with
Krishna Ballabh Babu and Binodanand Jha as members to look into the issue of farmer’s
grievances in the province. In January 1936 the Provincial Congress Committee had
met for its annual session at Chatra where it celebrated Independence Day on
the 26th of January. The session elected members for the forthcoming
All India Congress Session scheduled at Lucknow. Swami Sahajanand Saraswati was
among the eight members who were elected to attend the Lucknow session. At this
meeting, a decision was taken to constitute a Committee to inquire into the
grievance of peasants which found a reference in the above confidential fortnightly
report the Chief Secretary, Bihar to the Home Secretary, Government of India. It
appears the government was wary of the activities of Krishna Ballabh Sahay and
kept a close watch on him as it is seen that his name appeared in almost all
such confidential despatches of the Chief Secretary. In 1937, both of them were
appointed Parliamentary Secretaries in his cabinet by Shri Krishna Sinha.
Let us go back to the 1962 general
election. Once again there was a ruckus within the Congress over the
sharing of seats. On the one hand, there was the Brahmin group of Binodanand
Jha and on the other there was the Bhumihar group of Mahesh Prasad
Sinha. Krishna Ballabh Sahay pitchforked in and succeeded in creating an
equation of a few sporadic leaders and castes. When a consensus could not
be reached among State Congress leaders on the issue of ticket distribution, Prime
Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had no other option but to send a central
team under the chairmanship of Swaran Singh to sort out the contentious issue. Lal
Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi were other members of this Committee. This
committee preferred Binodanand Jha’s nominees and more than six dozen
candidates owing allegiance to Krishna Ballabh Sahay were denied tickets. Despite
being thus marginalized, Krishna Ballabh Sahay had no complaints with the
central leadership. He was still the most effective fund-raiser of the
Congress not only in the province but in the country for which his party was
dependent on him. Recalling this, Krishna Nandan Sahay, who
later went on to become mayor of Patna, writes-'Krishna
Ballabh Babu used to help Congress representatives with money for election
expenses and did not distinguish who belonged to his group or
who belonged to the rival group. On one occasion he gave me money in sealed envelopes
to be handed over to the Congress candidates of North Bihar. There were many
names among them, who did not support Krishna Ballabh Babu. I was taken
aback and drew his attention towards this fact and sought to know whether they
also have to be helped with money. Krishna Ballabh Babu’s reply was an
eye-opener for me. He said that one must not forget that they were all contesting
on behalf of Congress. Where the prestige of the Party is involved, the
individual ego and rivalries must take a backseat. This was the greatness of
this enigmatic leader who we know as Krishna Ballabh Sahay. His benevolence was
restricted not only to spending in elections, but he helped Congressmen with finances
to solemnize the marriage of their daughters, education of their children and helping
them in times of distress.'
It may be mentioned here that his
party benefitted immensely from K. B. Sahay’s capabilities to raise funds from
public sources. Right from Dr Rajendra Prasad to Indira Gandhi, K. B. Sahay supported
the central leadership of the Congress with funds. He never kept even a pie of public
funds with him. These were promptly deposited in the accounts of the Provincial
Congress and all-expense incurred was in the public domain as records of the
Provincial Congress. Yet when the landlord lobby, the leaders of the
Left Parties and the Socialists and the media conspired to defame him during
the reign of Mrs Gandhi, K. B. Sahay was left in a lurch and he had to face the
consequences on his own. The top brass of the party did not come forward to
defend him. Senior journalist of those times, S. N. Vinod states that
‘though K. B. Sahay was accused of corruption, he had not
committed any act of corruption for his personal gains and had always used
public funds to help the Congress Party and party workers. K. B. Sahay was a
tough administrator with a rough tongue. Once we were sitting in the
Journalists' Gallery of the Vidhan Sabha and K. B. Sahay was present there as a
journalist- a job he went back to after losing the elections in 1967. He posed
a question to fellow journalists’ present there-"a politician must possess
head (intelligence), hand (strength) and sweet tongue. I had the head
and hand but lacked a sweet tongue. Tell me, how many from
among the present crop of leaders possess any of these three attributes?'
However, Krishna Ballabh Babu had to
bear the brunt of not being able to get tickets for his supporters. After the Assembly
elections when the Congress Legislative Party met for the selection of a
leader, Krishna Ballabh Sahay, who was voted to victory from Patna (West) with
the highest number of votes in the entire state, lost to Binodanand Jha in the
election for the post of Legislature Party leader. Binodanand Jha assigned him
the insignificant ministry of Co-operatives in his cabinet, ignoring his
seniority and stature. But no department was less important to Krishna
Ballabh Babu. He worked hard and expanded the ambit of cooperatives not
only in agriculture but also in the field of small and cottage
industries, small-saving schemes run by Cooperative Banks, education (The
Jamshedpur Cooperative College), Weavers' Cooperative, Consumer
Cooperatives and Milk Producers Cooperatives etc. Krishna Ballabh Sahay started
a new scheme in which Village Cooperatives were extended contract of forests
which hitherto used to be cornered by the affluent class. In a speech in the
Bihar Legislative Assembly, he laid out its outline- 'We have
tried to set up forest cooperative societies. We want the local
people to form cooperative societies and take care of the forest. From
1962-63 till now, through 226 Cooperative Societies have got the contract for
forests and afforestation. I understand this will not only generate rural
employment but will also give a new lease of life to the forest.' Participating
in a seminar organised by the Jamshedpur-Golmuri Cooperative Union at Tatanagar,
he emphasized the importance of Cooperatives and asserted that ‘Swarajya’
can be achieved in real terms only through Cooperative Movement’. This is a
fine example of his comprehensive approach towards Cooperative Movement. By
carving out a separate Ministry of Cooperatives this year, the Central
government has gone ahead and reinforced the vision of the charismatic
leadership of K. B. Sahay.
After the 1962 elections and on once
again taking over as the Chief Minister of Bihar, Binodanand Jha offered to
organize the annual session of Congress at Patna. The event was a success and
Pandit Binodanand Jha succeeded in enhancing his image before the Central
leadership.
Though Binodanand Jha had sidelined K.
B. Sahay he was well aware that K. B. Sahay would not lay low and will
certainly strike back at an opportune moment. He decided to pre-empt any such
possible move by K. B. Sahay by striking first. This led to the famous fish
scandal wherein the State Government and its investigation department alleged that
Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, a close confidant of K. B. Sahay had, on the directions
of his master, conspired to eliminate the Chief Minister by arranging for him
fish laced in poison. This fish was said to have been sourced from the Kadam
Kuan based ‘Raj Hotel’ owned by Biswanath Verma- another close confidant of K.
B. Sahay. It was a serious allegation. The issue went to the Central
leadership. Nehru conducted an independent enquiry through the Central
Investigation Department (CID), which laid bare the truth behind the conspiracy
theory and gave a clean chit to Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, Biswanath Verma and 33
other accused in the said conspiracy. Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav has mentioned in
one of his articles that this episode destroyed the image of Binodanand Jha
before the Central leadership. It waited for an opportune moment to replace
him. The opportunity came in the form of the famous ‘Kamraj Plan’. Under the Kamraj
scheme, Shri Binodanand Jha was chosen as one of the eight Congress Chief
Ministers for the work of the organization and was asked to resign from the
post of Chief Minister. Once again the Congress MLAs gathered at Sadaqat
Ashram to elect a leader. This time Krishna Ballabh Babu was successful in
creating a new caste equation in his favour. With the help of Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, he started mobilizing MLAs from
other backward castes, the Scheduled castes and the Scheduled Tribes in his
favour. Thus Krishna Ballabh Babu succeeded in mobilizing the Koeri (Kushwaha), the Kurmi and Yadav alliance in his favour.
This alliance came to be known as the 'Triveni Sangh’ in the coming years. On
the other hand, Beerchand Patel, the Koeri leader who contested him with
Binodanand Jha’s support failed to even elicit the support of his fellow caste
leaders. Eventually barring Brahmins even the Rajput and Bhumihar leaders extended
their support in favour of Krishna Ballabh Babu. Satyendra Narayan Sinha,
a powerful Rajput leader and son of Anugrah Babu and Bandi Shankar Singh, an
upcoming young Bhumihar leader and son of Shri Krishna Sinha, the first
Chief Minister of Bihar, supported K. B. Sahay. Krishna Ballabh Babu
was elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party and he took oath
as the fourth Chief Minister of Bihar on 2 October 1963.
Though he could not stop K. B. Sahay
from becoming the Chief Minister, Binodanand Jha kept his pressure on K. B.
Sahay’s Government and also fuelled the aspirations of the opposition leaders.
At the same time, he kept manoeuvring to earn back the confidence of the
Central leadership and thus kept his aspirations for the post of Chief Minister
alive. In the 1967 general elections, Congress lost the majority in Bihar and
slipped out of power. K. B. Sahay had also lost the elections. Even in absence
of K. B. Sahay, the rival factions within Congress never created an atmosphere
in favour of Binodanand Jha for him to lay his claim to the post of Chief
Minister. When Indira Gandhi split the Congress in 1969, Binodanand Jha sided
with Mrs Gandhi. Binodanand Jha won the parliamentary elections from Darbhanga
in 1971 but unfortunately died the same year, with his wish remaining
unfulfilled.
[Reference: (i) Coalition Politics in India: Paul R. Brass
(American Political Science Review ), (ii) Multi-party coalition
Government of India-in the phase non-Congress (iii) Lallantop (iv) Intra-party
Conflict in the Bihar Congress – Ramashraya Roy (v) Politics
and Governance in Indian States – Bihar, West Bengal and Tripura –
Harihar Bhattacharya and Subrata Mitra (vi) Bihar Legislative Assembly
Proceedings (vii) Fortnightly Despatches of the Chief Secretary Bihar to the
Home Secretary, Government of India, National Archives]
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