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Tejashwi Yadav to take part in PM Modi’s meet in place of Nitish
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has deputed his deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting on conservation of the Ganga in Kolkata on December 30.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has deputed his deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting on conservation of the Ganga in Kolkata on December 30.
This will be the second meeting called by the Centre that Kumar will skip since he ended his alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and formed the government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress in August.
On December 17, Yadav and his ministerial colleague Vijay Kumar Chowdhary attended Union home minister Amit Shah’s Eastern Zonal Council meeting of chief ministers in Kolkata.
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Kumar downplayed the perception that he was avoiding any interaction with Modi after ending his alliance with the BJP. He said when Modi last chaired a meeting on the Namami Gange scheme for the conservation of the Ganga, Sushil Modi, who was his deputy then, attended it as he was in charge of the department concerned.
“This time Tejashwi Yadav is handling this department; so we requested him to go,” said Kumar on Wednesday after paying homage to late BJP leader Arun Jaitley on his birth anniversary. Kumar said they have been working on the Ganga conservation for a long time.
A Comptroller and Auditor General of India report tabled in the Bihar assembly in March slammed the state government for not utilising a major portion of funds sanctioned for strengthening the sewerage infrastructure in Patna under the Namami Gange scheme. It said the project was running behind schedule.
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“Around ₹684 crore meant to be used under the scheme in a span of four financial years was left untouched by the Bihar State Ganga River Conservation and Programme Management Society...,” it said.
Kumar separately said he will start a yatra on January 5 and visit all districts to see the work being done and to meet people. He said a corruption case against RJD chief Lalu Prasad was reopened this month as his party joined the government.
