Clean-up act

While it was difficult to miss the posturing and sabre-rattling around Prime Minster Narendra Modi's visit to Patna, a little detail went unnoticed. A day before the visit, the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) went on a drive to remove illegal hoardings and posters from the streets. Apparently, a majority of these posters had been put up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and they splashed large photographs of the Prime Minister. Many Rashtriya Janata Dal posters were also removed though most life-sized hoardings of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar were left untouched. The PMC said the removal of illegal posters was part of the security drill and that it was just a coincidence that most illegal posters and hoardings that were removed belonged to the BJP. The Chief Minister's face, they said, adorned "licensed hoarding space".