(From left) State rural works minister Bhim Singh, Bihar rural development minister Nitish Mishra and Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh in Patna on Monday. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 13: Union minister for rural development and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh faced the ire of his partymen at the state guest house here today.

The Congress leaders expressed their anger over the minister’s visit to Bihar and his subsequent praise of the Nitish Kumar government.

The leaders were also miffed because Ramesh neither paid a visit to the party headquarters nor did he inform the leadership of his tour.

Instead, the party workers said, the minister came and praised the Nitish government for his development works which the Bihar Congress has been criticising. The workers told Ramesh that Union minister of road, transport and highways, C.P. Joshi, too had visited Bihar to inaugurate Kosi Mahasetu and had eulogised the Nitish government.

“The state president of the Congress did not even get an invitation letter, while Joshi came here and praised the Nitish government,” said a Congress leader.

About a dozen party workers, led by Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman Vinod Sharma, who went to the state guesthouse, first welcomed the Union minister with flowers. They then held out placards demanding centrally sponsored schemes, especially Indira Awas Yojana, Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to be probed by the CBI.

Ramesh is scheduled to meet Nitish tomorrow to review the schemes.

The delegation, which met the minister today, included Umakant Singh, Shashi Kant Tiwari, Shailendra Kumar Pappu, Kundan Singh, Alok Kumar Sinha, Harendra Narayan Tiwari, Amar Kumar Sinha, Suresh Kumar Ram and others.

Umakant Singh, the All India Congress Committee member, told The Telegraph: “A new but wrong tradition is being set as the Union ministers come to the state without informing the party leadership. They just come and praise the state government’s work which has a direct and adverse impact on the morale of our workers who fight for the party on the streets.”

The state workers have demanded from the high command that it should issue directives to the ministers to visit the party office and also inform the state chief and legislature party leader about their visit, Singh said.