‘Govt failed in tackling Covid, flood situation’
nNEWDELHI:CONGRESS leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his government for their alleged failure in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and flood situation in the poll-bound state.
He challenged Kumar’s claims of good governance and added the state’s people are in despair and yet the chief minister “seems unmoved” and unable to act in the face of crisis. “It [the Bihar government] even failed thousands of migrant workers from the state during the [Covid-19] lockdown period,” he said in his first virtual address to around 1,000 party leaders and workers ahead of the assembly polls. “Today, I am predicting a much bigger storm of unemployment and a sinking economy which may batter Bihar and the rest of the country in about six months.”
Gandhi said India is on its way to becoming the “vishwa guru of coronavirus as the situation is going to worsen”. This came after Congress legislature party leader Sadanand Singh pointed out that Gandhi had warned the government in February that India was going to be hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gandhi said Bihar has been the harbinger of change as Mahatma Gandhi launched his first Satyagraha against the British from Champaran. He added the state will show the way and change the country’s direction and fate.
Gandhi asked Congress leaders and workers to fight the upcoming assembly polls by spreading the message of love and compassion to defeat divisive politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological fount, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.
The BJP lost the last assembly elections in the state when Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) formed the government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress. JDU returned to Bjpled National Democratic Alliance fold in Bihar in 2017.
A Congress leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gandhi had finalised a programme to visit Bihar’s flood-affected areas but the security agencies did not give clearance.
Gandhi said an alliance in Bihar with like-minded parties will be based on “mutual respect” and “reasonable give and take” and then only will they be successful in defeating the JDU-BJP combine. The Congress is part of a grand alliance of RJD, Hindustani Awam Morcha, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and Vikassheel Insaan Party.
The assembly elections are due in October-november but the seat-sharing talks are yet to start.