With 22 ‘tainted’ ministers in Bihar cabinet, Nitish’s fight against corruption proves empty

According to a report, the new cabinet in Bihar under CM Nitish Kumar had 22 ministers with criminal records.

Patna, August 2: Only last week, Nitish Kumar resigned as the chief minister of Bihar as a mark of protest against the "tainted" deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.

Immediately after tendering his resignation, Nitish, while briefing reporters, said that his move was to fight against corruption. The step taken by Nitish was widely-welcomed by his former foe and now friend, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Within the passage of a few hours of his resignation, Nitish joined hands with the BJP to form a fresh government in the state, thus breaking away from his former alliance, the Mahagathbandhan, formed by the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) with the help of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress to fight the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections.

Now, Nitish's tall claims fall flat as a report indicated that more than three-fourth of the ministers in Bihar's new JD(U)-BJP government have criminal cases against them.

In fact, the number of "tainted" ministers in Nitish's present cabinet is higher than what it was in the previous Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) cabinet.

The report has been prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-partisan and non-governmental organisation which works in the area of electoral and political reforms.

According to the report, as many as 22 ministers out of 29 in the present Bihar government have criminal cases against them, while in the grand alliance cabinet, 19 of total 28 ministers had cases registered against them.

The report was prepared after an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of the 29 ministers including the CM by the Bihar Election Watch, an organisation that works for the electoral and political reforms in the state, and the ADR.

According to the report, out of the 22 ministers who have declared to have criminal cases, nine have declared to have serious criminal cases against themselves.

As far as educational qualification of the ministers are concerned, nine ministers have declared their educational qualification to be between class 8 and 12 pass, 18 are graduates or have higher degrees.

Once again continuing with the country-wide trend of dismissal representation of women in political posts, in Nitish's new cabinet there is only one woman minister, stated the report.

However, the number of crorepatis in the new Nitish-led cabinet has come down marginally to 21 from 22 in the previous one. The average asset of 29 ministers is Rs 2.46 crore, the report said.

On July 26, JD(U) supremo Nitish had resigned as the CM of Bihar, ending the two-year-old alliance with the Lalu Prasad-led RJD.

Soon, Kumar was again sworn in as the CM the next day with BJP's Sushil Kumar Modi as his deputy.

OneIndia News