Patna, July 23: Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) today attacked the Badh Chala Bihar campaign of the JDU terming it "photocopy" of a scheme launched by former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi in November last year.
Nitish Mishra, the core committee member of HAMS, said the JDU government was spending a lot of money and resources when it was already equipped with a similar scheme, "Hamara Gaon Hamari Yojana", which had been introduced by the rural development department.
"The Badh Chala Bihar campaign of the JDU aims to hold interactions with the people of Bihar and tell them about the achievements of the state government. In addition to it, the campaign aims at knowing the wants of the people based upon which a vision document by the name of Bihar@2025 will be prepared. With a lot of resources being presently spent on it, we would like to say that last year Manjhi had launched the Hamara Gaon Hamari Yojana scheme, which aimed to do just that. A socio-economic mapping of 1.16 lakh wards of Bihar was done and there were direct interactions with the people of the state. The Manjhi government tried to know about their needs and based on the same, a plan for their development over the next five years was made. The whole report is there already and we feel that the JDU's campaign is nothing but a copy of the scheme, which the state government has in its kitty already. The state government is just spending much-needed resources on something which already exists," Mishra said.
The Hamara Gaon Hamari Yojana scheme had been launched by Manjhi on November 19 last year. "Once the scheme was launched, the people of the state government toiled hard for three days as they visited every ward and interacted with the people and prepared the pathway for the next five years," Mishra said.
The former minister said that until now there had been no talks with the NDA in connection with seat sharing and the HAMS was doing their own homework.
"Right now, we are doing our homework regarding the Assembly seats in Bihar. Further discussions will take place soon. All our leaders and MLAs have been asked to first complete their own homework. Until now, there has been no talks with our alliance partners regarding seat sharing," Mishra added.
Badh Chala Bihar, according to the government, is one of the biggest ever democratic exercises that aims to involve all citizens and other relevant stakeholders of the state in participatory agenda setting. Through this unique initiative, the government aims to establish a benchmark in citizens' engagement.
