LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan at the news meet in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, June 26: Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief and former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan has accused the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government of failing on all accounts as the chief minister, with his populist measures, is only concerned about the short-term development of the state.

Paswan said the state development work is designed to suit votebank politics and not the issue of the state’s real development.

Talking to reporters at his party office, Paswan said: “The NDA government in its six years of rule has only strived for short-term development goals of the state, merely distributing cycles and uniforms among the students. But in the past six years, neither any industry nor any power plant has been set up in the state.”

Lambasting the Nitish-led NDA government, the LJP chief said the state government with BJP’s hidden agenda is moving on the path of the Gujarat government, targeting minority communities in Seemanchal area. Paswan said the LJP, along with his partner RJD, has been condemning the police brutality, unprovoked firing and killing of innocents in Bhajanpur village of Forbesganj on June 3 and demands that Nitish Kumar should resign from the chief minister’s post.

Paswan said it was the height of negligence on the part of the chief minister not to have bothered to visit Muzaffarpur where almost 50 children died of “mysterious” diseases.

On being asked why he or the RJD chief, Lalu Prasad, are mum over the deaths in Muzaffarpur and other north Bihar districts and only raising the Forbesganj incident, Paswan said the party has sent a delegation to the affected area but he avoided visiting the affected area personally as it would increase the problem due to VIP movement.

Paswan said according to the survey, which was conducted on the guidelines of the high court, more than 52 per cent of the population is malnourished that implies that the government has failed in its promise of providing food to all. “Moreover, a survey conducted by ASAR, a non-govrnment organisation, found that more than 70 per cent students studying in Class V do not have the intelligence quotient of even Class II.”

Similarly, the national rate of literacy is 74.6, while the state rate is 63.82 per cent. “On the power front too, the state government has lagged behind, the total requirement of electricity in Bihar is 3000MW but the state produces just 584.6MW of electricity, depending on the Centre for 1,772MW.” The power deficit in the state in 2009-10 was 45.33 per cent, which will increase to 66 per cent by 2012.

On relation with the Congress, Paswan said: “Our relation with the Congress party has never worsened, but at the same time, like other political parties, LJP too condemns the recent price hike in diesel and LPG by the Union government.”