Nitish Kumar (top) and Abdul Bari Siddiqui

Patna, Feb. 25: Chief minister Nitish Kumar and leader of the Opposition Abdul Bari Siddiqui exchanged verbal arrows in the Assembly today over the Kosi flood of 2008.

Nitish said Siddiqui was attempting to “baat ka khaal nikalna” or making a mountain out of a molehill. The Opposition leader retorted that Nitish was in the habit of “beating his own nagara”.

Intervening in a short-notice question, Siddiqui said after the Kosi deluge, the state government had failed to respond to the emergency for 10 days. Small voluntary organisations had fed the flood victims. The chief minister denied the charge and said: “The relief work carried out by our government was historic and appreciated by people in and outside the state.

“Successive election results have proven that the flood victims have appreciated our efforts,” said Nitish. He taunted Siddiqui by reminding him that RJD’s influence had been virtually wiped out in the flood-ravaged Kosi area both in the past Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

The duel was triggered by a short-notice question by BJP MLA Amarendra Pratap Singh who said 30,000kg of foodgrain sent by a voluntary organisation in 2008 had rotted at Patna Junction.

Disaster management minister Renu Kumari said the foodgrain was sent by train to a voluntary organisation. The state government had nothing to do with it. Nitish Kumar intervened in the discussion and said during the deluge, he had made it clear that the state government did not want foodgrain and had asked for cash instead.

“For those who donated in kind, we had requested them to donate to the Indian Red Cross as the district magistrate was an ex-officio president of the district unit,” Nitish said.

The chief minister also said several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had started relief work on their own. “I do not want to comment on their work. The state government cannot afford to run a relief camps for four days and then suddenly close it,” he said, recalling many of the items that were sent were not needed by the victims.

Siddiqui intervened to ask the minister the name of the NGO that was responsible for receiving the food grain at Patna Junction.

“The government was no where in the picture. The name of the organisation can be given only by the railways,” Kumar said.

This sparked off the war of words.

In reply to another question, power minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said in 2010, Patna Electricity Supply Undertaking (Pesu) had collected Rs 588 crore against the target of Rs 815 crore which amounted to 72 per cent of the target.

He said Pesu had fallen short of the target because of the shortage of employees.

The governments accepted that a massive shortage of doctors was ailing the government hospitals — only 4,169 medics were posted at present, against the total strength 8,281. But recruitment of doctors was being done to rectify the situation.

The government also accepted that ambulance services leased out to private parties had been withdrawn in 19 districts because of non-payment of dues.