Kishanganj (Bihar): It is just three days to go for the battle for Bihar to begin as the state goes for Assembly polls, and it seems UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has joined the political blame-game.
Kick-starting her campaign from minority dominated Kishanganj, she joined Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to hit out at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying the state government was not utilising funds sent by the Centre. Sonia also called Nitish an opportunistic politician who had compromised on secular principles.
"The Centre has provided crores and crores of rupees to the state under various centrally-sponsored schemes... but it is unfortunate that there are reports of corruption," Gandhi told an election rally here.
Criticising the development claim of Nitish Kumar, she said, "We don't know what happened to the funds the Centre provided to the state" and asked the people as to how many hours they received electricity and what happened to the money earmarked for education and health sectors.
"Students have to go outside the state for better education, opportunity and also for ensuring treatment of diseases," she said.
On Sunday Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the BJP have sharply rebuffed the Prime Minister's rebuke that central funds remain underutilised in Bihar.
The two parties on Sunday credited the NDA government with putting Bihar on the growth path and for ending a long cycle of negative growth rate.
Nitish said, “I am surprised after listening to the PM. Like others we also made the mistake of seeing him different from his party. We have been inviting him from past 5 years but he didn't get time. We were not expecting this from PM. He ignored all the facts.”
He also said, “I want to correct the PM that we have been getting one thousand crore rupees not from 2004 but from 2002. This decision was not taken by the UPA government. This was taken by the NDA government. I would like to appeal to the PM that he should look at Bihar Reorganisation Bill first. This package goes to central agencies and not to Bihar government. They are the ones who are not spending it and still the Prime Minister is blaming Bihar government for this.”
This came after the PM hit out at Nitish Kumar at a rally in Bihar's Araria district on Saturday, on central funds being misused in the state
Significantly, Nitish also clarified that he would campaign jointly with BJP leaders in the polls, indicating he could after all share the dais with top BJP leaders.
Nitish Kumar said, “NDA and JD-U will campaign in Bihar together. There is no confusion now. Our coalition is very mature now.”
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