Patna: RJD vice-president Shivanand Tiwari launched a tirade on Saturday, attacking the state and the Centre's development models during the all-party meeting for preparing the joint memorandum to be submitted to the 15th finance commission.

Tiwari started by raising the way Bihar was lagging on "human development index" in spite of roads and bridges been constructed, and the way bank deposits were being transferred to other states to provide credit.

"The way technological developments are happening and jobs are shrinking, how can we provide employment to the people. The development model being pursued by the government is not the solution to the issue," Tiwari said at the programme convened by the Asian Development Research Institute.

Fearing that the meeting may turn into a battlefield if the ruling party members joined the issue, Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary intervened. He requested Tiwari to give suggestions pertaining to the 15th finance commission and what the state should demand.

Addressing Tiwari as "Baba" as he is fondly called in the political circles, the Speaker said: "We will separately talk about the issues you are raising here at other forums. Here, we will only talk about the state and what it needs. We are not sitting here to discuss the development models of the state or the Centre."

Unappeased, Tiwari went on to assert that traditional economists did not understand anything and turned his fire towards criticising chief minister Nitish Kumar.

"Nitish ji, who portrays himself as a follower of Ram Manohar Lohia and Mahatma Gandhi, should follow the path shown by them," he said.

With Tiwari's lead, the opposition parties indulged in criticising the state and the Centre while giving suggestions for the joint memorandum.

Congress MLA Shakeel Ahmad Khan said the memorandum to be sent to the finance commission should also ask what happened to the "poll promise of a special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore". The CPI's leader Satya Narayan Singh said while the agriculture roadmap had been prepared, Bihar was still far behind in agriculture.

"Wheat from the recent rabi crop is not being procured properly by the government. Farmers are going for distress sale at Rs 1,500 per quintal. The situation is very bad," Singh said.

The CPM's Sarvoday Sharma and CPI-ML legislator Mehboob Alam too attacked the ruling parties over their policies and how they had left Bihar a poor state.