‘Bihar ranks top from the bottom’: Lalu Prasad Yadav hits out at Nitish Kumar over state's Niti Aayog SDG Index ranking

“As a result of Nitish-BJP’s 16 years of relentless efforts and negative politics Bihar ranks top from the bottom,” Lalu Prasad Yadav tweeted on Saturday.

Bihar former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav hit out at the Nitish Kumar led-state government over Bihar’s ranking in the Niti Aayog Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) index 2020-21. Yadav blamed Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s efforts and negative politics of 16 years for the reason for Bihar’s low rankings.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav hit out at the ‘double engine’ coalition government of Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, (HT archive) (HT_PRINT)

“As a result of Nitish-BJP’s 16 years of relentless efforts and negative politics Bihar ranks top from the bottom,” Yadav tweeted on Saturday.

“The ones who used to cry about the alleged jungle raj have lost their tongue and are now hiding. Bihar can be annihilated but they cannot tolerate socio-economic justice,” he added.

The NITI Aayog SDG index evaluates the progress of states and Union Territories on the basis of various parameters like health, education, economic growth, institutions, gender, climate change, and environment. In the latest index, released on Thursday, Kerala retained the top rank with a score of 75, while Bihar was declared to be the worst-performing state with a low score of 52.

Yadav further hit out at the ‘double engine’ coalition government of Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, accusing Kumar of closing down health care centres opened during his tenure, and turning them into ghost houses. “It is only because of this that Bihar has ranked the top from the bottom in the NITI Ayog report,” he added.

"The so-called double engine (government) has turned into a trouble engine," the Rashtriya Janata Dal president tweeted in Hindi.

The current leader of the opposition, RJD’s Tejashwi Prasad Yadav too hit out at the state government over the low rankings.

"Bihar has been placed at the bottom for the third consecutive year. This sums up the 16-year BJP-Nitish rule's progress on paper," Tejashwi tweeted.

JD(U) leader and spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan accepted the Niti Ayog rankings and told PTI that Bihar’s condition would have been better if the state had received special state status during the RJD and Congress regime.

“Yes, I accept but if Bihar had special status then the situation of Bihar would have been different and for this situation of Bihar RJD and Congress are responsible." PTI said quoting Ranjan.

Ranjan also hit out at Yadav, alleging that during his tenure all discussions about Bihar revolved only around crime.