Lalu Prasad

New Delhi, July 18: RJD chief Lalu Prasad today charged the state government with failing to perform its duties and shirking responsibilities, denying the role of his partymen in the midday meal tragedy.

“Nitish’s government is responsible (for the tragedy). The state government is running away from its responsibility. The midday meal programme works smoothly in the rest of the country. There are such problems only in Bihar owing to the rampant corruption. The government has been neglecting this issue. All they are concerned with is saving their seats,” Lalu alleged, while briefing reporters at his official residence here.

Political parties have been blaming each other over the death of 23 children after consuming midday meal at a government school in Chhapra.

Taking a jibe at education minister P.K. Shahi for labelling the tragedy a “political conspiracy”, Lalu said the charge were baseless and demanded Nitish’s resignation. “What Shahi said was to distract people from the investigation into the tragedy. They have played with the lives of innocent children. The people of Bihar will not forgive them and they will have to go,” he said.

Lalu also demanded an investigation into the tragedy immediately.

“It is silly that they are accusing their own officials. It is not the responsibility of the Opposition to look into the hierarchy of the officials concerned. It is the ruling party’s responsibility and they cannot run away from it. We are demanding a strong investigation,” said Lalu.

Even the Congress criticised the government for its poor handling of the case. In a statement on Wednesday, Congress leader Jagdambika Pal alleged that the Bihar government had been careless.

“There have been complaints pertaining to midday meal in Bihar earlier too but it did not look into them. In a way, they did not serve food but death on children’s plates,” Pal had said.

Former Union minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan today paid a visit to Dharmsati Gandaman village of Saran district and met family members of the victims.

Paswan later told reporters that he had expressed apprehension about such incident earlier and shared his concern at a meeting of human resource development advisory committee meeting held on March 14 this year.