PATNA: Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday accused BJP National President Nitin Nabin of "lacking guts" to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to visit Bihar’s flood- and drought-hit areas.
Slamming top BJP leaders, Yadav told media persons in Patna that Nabin is from Bihar, but he lacks confidence to tell Modi and Shah to visit his state.
“Bihar has got its first BJP chief minister, eight union ministers from the state and 42 NDA MPs. There are also more than 250 MPs...MLAs and MLCs, but all of them are ineffective and incompetent. People will hold such ineffective public representatives accountable,” Yadav said.
The LoP from Bihar said the state had received less than 35 per cent of expected rainfall. Due to the severe drought, standing crops across lakhs of hectares are being destroyed, while millions of farmers are unable to even recover their input costs.
The RJD leader claimed that the government had not yet assessed the drought situation, alleging that farmers were facing a livelihood crisis.
Yadav alleged that around 45 lakh people in the state have been affected by the floods, but the NDA government is showing no concern for them. He claimed a few community kitchens and relief camps were opened merely as a formality, but they were shut down within two to four days due to lack of funds.
Yadav contended that disaster victims had the first right over the state treasury. He said that when the Mahagathbandhan government was in power in 2015 and 2022, with the RJD holding the disaster management and finance portfolios, a provision was made in the budget on the advice of RJD National President Lalu Prasad that four per cent of the state's total budget could be used as a contingency fund during natural disasters and other crises.
“Now calculate according to the budget how much Bihar's contingency fund should be. Where has that money gone? The contingency fund was withdrawn in June itself, and now there is a shortage of funds for flood victims,” Yadav said.
Yadav demanded that the “so-called double-engine government” immediately provide Rs 15,000 in assistance to every flood victim, conduct a survey of drought- and flood-affected farmers, and provide them compensation at the earliest.
Nearly 50 lakh people in 15 districts have been affected by floods across the state. In several districts, flood victims alleged that relief materials being distributed were insufficient and, in many places, discrimination was being done by the district administration under the influence of ruling party MLAs and MPs.