Patna: Former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Friday visited Buxar to meet a Mahadalit family who have said that two of their children died of starvation, and alleged the state government was insensitive to people's suffering.

The deaths happened in a Musahar colony last week but came to light on Tuesday.

The government, however, has denied that the deaths happened due to hunger.

After the family said that the children, aged two and five, died of hunger, the Buxar district administration claimed that encephalitis had caused the deaths.

Two days back, an RJD delegation including former Buxar MP Jagdanand Singh had visited Koransarai village under Dumraon block, around 110km west of Patna, to meet the family. After meeting the family on Thursday, Manjhi demanded chief minister Nitish Kumar's resignation.

"This government has become impotent. It kills Mahadalit people by not giving them food," Manjhi told The Telegraph over phone from Buxar. "I demand that chief minister Nitish Kumar resign. Two of this woman's four children died but the SDO (sub divisional officer) has written she has six children. It only means that the administration made the report without meeting the family and cooked up their own stories," he added.

Dhana Devi, the mother of the two kids, told journalists that they died because they did not get anything to eat.

She said her five-year-old son died on August 26, and two-year-old daughter died on September 1.

Devi's husband Shiv Kumar, the sole earning member of the family, was arrested in May on charges of disrupting administrative functioning.

The Buxar district administration has ordered an inquiry even while denying that the children died of starvation.

Buxar district magistrate Raghvendra Singh said both deaths happened because of encephalitis. Dumraon SDO Harendra Ram said he had met the family and the mother told him that her children died of recurring fever.

Manjhi, he national president of Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS), was accompanied by his party's national spokesperson Danish Rizwan and RJD MLA Shambhu Nath Yadav of Bhrahampur constituency in Buxar.

Manjhi also met several other Dalit residents of the village and alleged the people were not getting any benefits of government schemes.

He said the Nitish Kumar government was insensitive towards Dalits. Manjhi demanded Rs 10 lakh for the family of the dead children and a government job to a member of the family.

Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had also raked up the Buxar deaths a couple of days ago, and tweeted in Hindi: Uncle (Nitish) is running a circus and not a government.