Patna, Oct. 11: Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh today vowed to cleanse the rural job scheme of corruption in Bihar, but not before astonishing his audience by appearing to take on Rahul Gandhi.

Inaugurating the eastern regional centre of the National Institute of Rural Development, the Rashtriya Janata Dal minister recalled that Rajiv Gandhi had once said only 15 paise of every rupee spent by the Centre reached people in some states.

“Now his son, he says only five paise reaches.… We want to give an answer to such allegations,” the rural development minister said in what, at first sight, appeared a jab at the Congress’s heir designate.

But Singh quickly clarified that what he had meant was, he wanted to prove Rahul wrong. The person he actually wanted to give an “answer” to was Bihar rural development minister Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha, who has accused Delhi of attaching too many strings to the money released for development programmes.

Singh also told The Telegraph that in a few months, there would be “zero-tolerance for corruption” in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The RJD leader said villagers looking for jobs under the scheme were being cheated. He listed Bengal and Bihar as the laggards when it came to spending money under the scheme. States like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, on the other hand, were spending close to Rs 100 crore on each district, he said.

Of the nearly Rs 4,000 crore allotted to Bihar’s 38 districts, the state had spent only Rs 400 crore, Singh said. “I don’t want to hear that five paise has been spent. Stop corruption and I will send money with no strings attached.”

In Bengal, Singh said, the Left Front government had been sitting on the scheme. “The Left had helped the passage of the rural employment guarantee bill… but they have not implemented it.”

Singh added that CPM cadres were neck deep in the corruption around the scheme.