Chief minister Nitish Kumar displays the potatoes in the Assembly on Wednesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, March 14: During the heydays of Lalu Prasad, his supporters had coined the slogan Jab tak rahega aalu, Bihar mein rahega Lalu. However, both the Assembly and the Legislative Council today passed a resolution congratulating Nitish Kumar for creating a world record in the production of potato.

Make no mistake. This was not chief minister Nitish Kumar but his namesake, a farmer from Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, who has achieved the feat of producing 729 quintals of potato on one hectare of land. The record of maximum potato (535 quintals per hectare) produced on a hectare is at present held by the Netherlands.

“The name is just a coincidence,” said the chief minister today, while announcing the record in both the Houses. Incidentally, three months ago, a group of farmers from the same village had created a “world record” for producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare using the system of rice intensification method.

The CM said the feat had been achieved through crosscutting experiment and organic farming. “It proves that productivity can be increased through productive farming instead of using chemical fertilisers,” he added.