There is something about the olfactory organs of politicians. Either they are too sharp and sensitive or they don’t have one and just bluster their way through.

If caricaturists have their hands full with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who smells conspiracy at every plausible twist and turn of every event – and even without the presence of twists, turns or the events themselves – they have one more conspiracy theorist. Meet Banerjee’s Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar.

A sensible man till just the other day, Kumar now seems to be encountering ghosts at every turn of the alley. Like Banerjee’s ghosts, who purportedly carry visiting cards pronouncing them as “Maoists and CPM members”, Nitish Kumar’s ghosts have calling cards of Lalu Yadav’s RJD and the BJP. But unlike Banerjee’s ghosts, who have been dancing and prancing with all alleged anti-social elements to overthrow her government for long now, Kumar’s ghosts seem to have started appearing only now. In fact, the new-age ghosts, who purportedly wear saffron, have started appearing on the Bihar CM’s horizon as recently as last month onward – after his Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), split ways with the BJP.

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Reports indicate the ghosts appeared yesterday (July 22) as well. So six days after one of the worst cases of negligence and sheer apathy, if not criminal intent, left 23 people, most of them school-going children, dead after they ate toxic and contaminated food distributed as part of midday meal scheme in Chapra town of Saran district, Kumar, said to be Bihar’s messiah, has opened his mouth. And from all reckoning, he promptly put his foot into it. According to reports, he indicated in Patna that the RJD and BJP could be behind the fatal plates of midday meal served last Tuesday (July 16).

"The Forensic Science Laboratory, which highlights the presence of pesticide in the midday meal, has confirmed our apprehensions about a conspiracy behind the tragedy at a school in Saran last week,” Kumar was quoted by PTI.

Addressing a meeting of JD(U) MPs, MLAs and office-bearers on Monday as part of Mission 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Kumar alleged that "an understanding between BJP and RJD was very much visible both after Bodh Gaya blasts and Chapra midday meal tragedy", according to the report.

Aside from the fact that any such “understanding” cannot be proved – though many will argue such assumptions, presumptions are allegations need not be proved in the “people’s court”, that favourite phrase of the Indian politician – it’s way too premature to point at any sinister ploy. But then what can Nitish Kumar do if the ghosts swagger along with all their might?

So what leads the CM to believe the basis of this “understanding”? "RJD and BJP had called bandh together on both occasions and this confirms the secret understanding between them,” Kumar said. Was he being naive or has his sense of political judgement been blurred by ghosts presumably trying to get an appointment with him? Is it not in the unwritten constitution of every political party, when in opposition, to call a bandh and cash in on anti-establishment sentiments? Has his own party not observed similar such bandhs?

Only last month, the Left parties as well as Bihar BJP had called a bandh after police firing left six tribals dead in Bagha last month. Did the CM see a red ghost alongside the saffron one then? Why were the two parties not presumed to have reached an “understanding” then? Or did the fact that the RJD and BJP called two such bandhs close to each other make them better candidates for accomplices?

But in his ghost-watching frenzy, Kumar might be forgetting that in both Bodhgaya blasts and Chapra midday meal tragedies, the state government was accused of ignoring what could have been leads: not heeding to intelligence inputs about terror attempts, and failure to spend over Rs 700 crore to spruce up the midday meal scheme. The money, according to a report in the Times of India, is “either lying unspent, or there were no proper documentation of how they were spent”.

In Indian politics, both are called callousness by the government – and ghost-watchers could even allege attempt to murder by the administration, like Mamata Banerjee, and now Nitish Kumar, is prone to claim after each mishap/tragedy. Only, the finger is pointed in the other direction.