Nitish Kumar Blasts Lalu for Playing Politics over Floods

PURNIA: If the Kosi’s fury has wrought unprecedented catastrophe across five districts of north-east Bihar, it has also unleashed the pent-up animosity between railway minister Lalu Prasad and chief minister Nitish Kumar. If the railway minister found a chance to hit the Bihar CM below the belt on Monday, it was Nitish’s turn to pay back on Tuesday. Nitish, making a stinging criticism of his arch rival, advised Lalu to desist from making a ‘tamasha’ over the Kosi deluge. The CM, who accompanied senior BJP leader L K Advani, on the latter’s aerial survey of the devastated areas, was talking to mediapersons at Chunapur defence aerodrome here. JD(U) national chief Sharad Yadav, deputy CM Sushil Modi, former minister Shahnawaz Hussain and BJP leader Ravi Shanker Prasad were also present. Nitish asked the railway minister not to demoralize the district magistrates and others engaged in the task of evacuating the flood-hit people and rushing relief at this time of crisis by picking up telephones and showering epithets of abuses on them. A seemingly angry CM said he has absolutely no intention of scoring political brownie points and waste precious time by engaging himself in political debate and skulduggery. He said the main focus of his government at the moment was rescue and evacuation of tens of thousands of the people still stranded and trapped in flood waters and then accelerate relief and rehabilitation of the uprooted and homeless destitutes. He reiterated that while relief operations would continue for months, the gargantuan task of rehabilitation would take years. Detailing how the state government had looked after 2.5 crore flood-affected people last year and managed the crisis, Nitish asked Lalu to some soul searching. “If he continued with his gimmicks and did not stop his histrionics, he will disappear from the political scene both in New Delhi and Bihar,” he said. He said he has had wide-ranging discussions with the Union Cabinet secretary on Tuesday and would deliberate with the World Bank team in the same evening. Nitish emphasized it was not the time to play blamegame and look for scapegoats.