Scams singe Nitish in Bihar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to welcome Nitish Kumar’s resignation on July 27 this year when the Bihar Chief Minister declared that his conscience would not allow him to function after his deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, was named by the CBI in a land transfer case when his father Lalu Prasad was the Railway Minister.

Junior Yadav’s protestation that he was a minor at the time did not cut much ice with Nitish Kumar. The PM welcomed the move as part of the bigger fight against corruption. Kumar was of course back as CM in less than 24 hours in alliance with the BJP.

A year down the line, the Yadav duo seem to be having the last laugh. With a number of ‘scams’ surfacing in the state, the RJD leaders have sharpened their attack on the Chief Minister.

Both tweeted after the latest embarkment scam, “There is currently a huge sale on scams in Nitish’s Bihar.” While Lalu asked Nitish, “have you ever caught a big fish in any of the scams”, Tejashwi tweeted “you (Nitish Kumar) were uncomfortable in the mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) because your colleagues were working with honesty.” In another tweet, Tejashwi, the leader of the opposition in the Assembly said, “Nitish babu has no accountability for the thousands of crores in scams getting exposed every day in Bihar.”

Some of these alleged scandals are the following:

• Embankment scam: A social worker, Shivesh Bharti filed a PIL in the Patna High Court alleging that even after spending ₹3608 crore on construction of embankments in Sitamadhi, the condition of the embankments remained poor. After the hearing, the High Court ordered a high-level inquiry into the entire construction work. Although Bharti in his PIL had accused the Jal Sansadhan Vibhag officials, on orders of the Patna High Court, 72 Jal Sansadhan Vibhag officials are investigating the case. If Yadavs are to be believed, the scam is to the tune of more than ₹11000 crore
  
  
• Mahadalit scam: On October 23 this year, an FIR was lodged by the Vigilance Bureau in the Mahadalit scam in which at least ₹5.01 crore of central government funds, meant for imparting skills like spoken English and computer literacy to Mahadalit youths through Bihar Mahadalit Vikas Mission were embezzled between 2010 and 2016
  
  
• Toilet scam: Earlier this month, on November 2, a toilet scam of around ₹15 crore surfaced in the capital city of Patna. Government funds for constructing toilets were embezzled by disbursing the amount to four NGOs between May 1 and June 23 last year. Three people have been arrested in connection with the alleged irregularities
  
  
• Srijan scam: The most infamous of all, the Srijan scam is about fraudulent transfer of government funds worth over ₹1000 crore to the accounts of Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti. As per the investigators, the NGO used to fraudulently procure cheque books from banks and forge signature of the district magistrate to issue cheques in its favour, transferring huge funds