Patna: Bihar does not have a large madhouse like Kanke of Jharkhand. In a way, Bihar is lucky. Had there been a Kanke-type very large madhouse, it would have been filled during elections. How? During Polls in Bihar, the political campaigners, mainly belonging to BJP and LJP, invariably orchestrate the chant of Chaara Ghotala or the Fodder Scam that took place in the Animal Husbandry Department of Bihar in 1996 mind you!
And Bihar was never the same after the scam came to light
Traditionally, since the last 23 years or so, during the Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly poll campaigns in Bihar, the topic of fake bills of the State’s Animal Husbandry Department or Chaara Ghotala adds to the insanity – not the scam itself and who was responsible for it, but the nature of the fake bills! A reading of those fake bills could certainly send you running to the sanatorium! Bihar, hence, is lucky it does not have a very big lunatic asylum like Kanke.
The Chaara Ghotala continues to remain the pivot around which the entire election campaigns had been revolving around since 1997. This year’s campaigning is no exception to it. Like earlier poll campaigns, this year also a section of political parties is chanting the rhythmic lyric of “Chaara Chore” against their rival RJD.
This old poll-time lyric sounds like “Murgi Chore, Chaara Chore, Jaldi Jaldi Gaddi Chhore…” (You thief of birds, thief of fodder of cattle, vacate the seat) continues to reverberate now like the campaigns of previous years.
Chaara Ghotala is a real cock and bull story. Not in the idiom’s sense as it indeed concerned the bulls, cows, calves, hens and cocks, and different other animals.
In India, there is no dearth of scams. But the facts of those scams are not strong enough to send a human being to a lunatic asylum. But Chaara Ghotala, which came to light in 1996, has that capacity as the most amazing type of bills were cashed in by Bihar’s treasury.
Such maddening bills amazed the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Those fake bills with the strangest possible facts fit for fiction also had figured in the court.
To substantiate why Bihar is lucky not to have a very big Pagalkhana or madhouse emanates from the fact that few fake bills cashed by the Bihar government concerned the delivery-expenses big-sized bulls. To deliver them, the veterinary doctors had to be paid and medicines expenses borne. Here, mind the language, please. We are, as per official records of bills, invoices, and vouchers, talking of delivery of pregnant big-sized bulls.
No wonder, during the poll campaigns a section of political parties in both Bihar and Jharkhand tell the electorate that in Bihar the corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and suppliers of various items to the Animal Husbandry Department (of Bihar) could create miracles such as making bulls pregnant and helping them attain the pride of motherhood that were, so far, the prerogative of the cows.
This perhaps is the world’s only scam that saw bulls delivering lovely, jumping calves much to the dismay of cows. Like this, a bill carrying voucher number 430 and dated 12/85 (1985) showed four bulls were transported from Ranchi to Ghagra in a vehicle. Now guess what that vehicle was? On inquiry, the CBI found it was a scooter.
Another instance: four bulls were transported from Ranchi to Jhinkpani in a car. Incidentally, the mother of all scams – Chara Ghotala – involved Rs. 957 crore in 1997. The RJD boss Laloo Prasad Yadav currently is in Ranchi Jail for his involvement in Chaara Ghotala.
Now you know the secret of why people in poll-bound Bihar would like to request to be sent to the Madhouse? When a bull mothers a calf instead of fathering is it not the time for the Pagalkana?
