He said on Wednesday that last year the Governor’s address to both the Houses of the state Asssembly gave some different figures whereas the Budget speech had some dfiferent story to tell. He cited half a dozen such examples in the two speeches and asked both the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, and his deputy as to which data should the people of the state believe in as they both are official. Either the Governor’s speech okayed by the state cabinet is wrong or the Budget, he asked.

Siddiqui, during his more than an hour-long speech, singled out the member-secretary of Asian Development Research Institute, Saibal Gupta, for criticism. He said that when “we were in power” he was close to the ruling establishment and now he is serving the Nitish Kumar government. But it is none else, but a researcher of his own Institute, Chitralee Dasgupta, who in a detail paper in the Economc and Political Weekly, a reputed journal, (December 25, 2010 issue) questioned the claim of the growth rate of Bihar. The very headline of the article Unravelling Bihar’s Growth Miracle suggests all. Siddiqui said that not only Bihar, but even states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Orissax have evolved a unique method of calculating the GDP. Incidentally, in all these states BJP is in power or are major partner in it. In Orissa it left the government only a couple of years back, he added.

Siddiqui said that on March 28, 2006 the then President, A P J Abdul Kalam, addressed both the Houses of Bihar Assembly and suggested 10-point agenda for the development of state.

Inter alia, the Mission for Bihar’s Prosperity said that 42 per cent people live below poverty line in the state. If it wants to be counted as a developed state the figure should come down to 20 per cent by 2010. But now the chief minister is saying that 1.40 crore families out of over 1.50 crores are living below the poverty line. In that way more than 80 per cent people are now living below the poverty line. Has poverty declined or gone up, is for everyone to see.

Siddiqui said that if the growth rate is over 11.03 per cent for so many years as repeatedly claimed by the state government than why is that no mention has ever been made of surplus revenue generated thereof. Why is it that everyone is silent on this count? If the GDP is really rising the poverty should have been wiped out but in contrast it is increasing.

Stating that since it is an era of the paid news now and one can get any news published on the first page the Leader of Opposition urged the chief minister and his cabinet colleague and partymen to read the inner pages of newspapers––page 4,5 and 6 which are filled with stories of grissly crimes.
Quoting from the Bihar Police website he explained as to how the rate of crime has increased. Take the case of kidnapping alone. It was 1679 in 2001 while 3602 in 2010. Similarly the number of murder, rape, dacoity, etc has reason sharply. This is the figure of the state government not of the opposition or the media.

Siddiqui read out the name of about a dozen traders, who were killed, abducted or have disappeared from various parts of Bihar in last three months when the NDA government came to power for the second time.

Commenting on the rampant casteism and corruption in the state bureacucracy he said that deputed IAS and IPS officers are holding plum posts while the Bihar cadre officers are being ignored, which is causing resentment in the entire bureaucracy. Now the posts of Patna district magistrate and senior superintendent of police have been reserved for the persons of the royal blood (that is the caste to which the chief minister himself belongs). He said one gentleman of that blood replaced another recently. A gentleman who as a police officer had to be removed from the Jammu and Kashmir for his failure to avert the Amarnath tragedy has been recently appointed as the SSP of Patna.

He said that when Nitish Kumar was the railway minister or agriculture minister of India he would give reply to any letter within 10-12 days. “Now we never get any reply. Even in the capacity of Leader of Opposition I wrote several times, for example, on the murder of the BJP MLA, Raj Kishore Kesri, but nobody has even bothered to confirm the letter,” he added.

Comment

comments...

Royal Blood replaces Royal Blood

Bihar has moved away from caste, now people talk only of development - yes indeed,now you should be of royal blood/ lineage to become the DM, SP of Patna, Chief of Electricity Board, CM's advisors etc.

PM should resign if he cannot control corruption like 2 G spectrum - the same CAG which had reported about AC-DC bill discrepancies.
Friendly media and scooters - remember foodgrains for relief were transported on scooters- saved the day.

GDP should not be a yardstick for development : Bihar CM
-wow, great we Biharis are at loss, we used to see on our Bihar TV sets that you've been awarded for the same GDP growth and your speech in English - every half an hour. Boy! you talked of development then! This is also one tight slap for the friendly media.

Dinkar's house illegally occupied by Dy. CM's relatives - they were not Lalu's men. Are they?

More than 40 people died due to Doctors strike due to Surendra Yadav's heroics! and Doctors called off their strike after CM's assurance - if only your assurance was enough then why the hell did you wait for scores of innocent poor people to die.It is like playing politics with life of Biharis

And, after reading this news I checked the Bihar Police's website and am reproducing a table from the Site

( Source: Bihar Police's website)
There is no need to explain as facts speak for themselves.
Raj Gayawala
Delhi, India