PATNA: Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today took potshots at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his directive for electrification of all villages in Bihar over the next four months and claimed that it was impossible to complete the work within the deadline.
The electrification works in remaining 28,259 villages was set for completion in two years between January 2014 to November 2015, but it has got delayed due to a host of reasons, including delay in award of tender in this regard, he said in a statement.
"I wonder how the Chief Minister will get electrification of over 28,000 villages completed over the next four months, even the project itself was meant for completion in two years," Sushil Modi said.
Describing the ambitious electrification project as impossible, the senior BJP leader alleged that the Chief Minister will pass the buck on bureaucracy if the works appearing impossible to start with did not materialise within the deadline.
Claiming that 25 per cent electrification works in Bihar under 10th and 11th plan have not been completed as yet, the former deputy chief minister held Kumar as "squarely responsible" for his government's failure to light up all villages as he held the Energy department either directly or through remote control even when other ministers were in-charge.
The Chief Minister's electrification target has come a cropper in his own native district - Nalanda - where against erection of 1.51 lakh electric poles only 15 per cent works have been completed so far, the senior BJP leader alleged.