Patna: Amid souring relations between ruling allies Janata Dal-United and Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha on Tuesday said that 80 per cent of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s dream project “Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal” programme has failed in the state.
Visiting his home district Lakhisarai, he said: “We have received reports that 80 per cent of households where ‘Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal’ were facilitated in the state, these arrangements are either partially completed or shut. In some places, it required repair work. Issues related to installation of water tanks, and pipelines also appeared before us. The overall situation is extremely bad.”
“Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal” is a pet project of Nitish Kumar. It comes under “Saat Nishchay Yojana” (Seven Point Programme) of the state government with an idea to provide water to every household in rural and urban areas.
Sinha, who is of the BJP, also asserted that the law and order situation is also at the lowest level in Bihar.
“The state government is used to transferring SPs, DSPs and other officers from one place to another. Such moves will not address the law and order situation in Bihar. It needs to break the mindset of the people. The honest officers are getting sidelined and corrupt officers are deployed on the key areas of the ground. I will personally talk to the DGP and Chief Secretary to avoid giving protection to them,” he said.
Sinha’s statement came at a time when the political relation between the BJP and the JD-U is not looking good.
It would be interesting to see how the JD-U reacts to it. There is an impression arising that BJP top leadership deliberately asked Sinha to raise these points and attack Nitish Kumar, and the state wing of BJP is not leaving any chances to target the CM.
There is speculation that Nitish Kumar may utilise the issue to break the alliance and form the government with the help of the RJD. However, JD-U national President Rajiv Ranjan Singh, who is popularly known as Lalan Singh, said that the relation with the BJP is normal so far.