Kishanganj:
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar
for presenting a secular image of his government while having an alliance with BJP which is "dead opposed to secularism".
Stepping up her party's attack on the Bihar government, she said, "The Centre has provided crores and crores of rupees to the state under various centrally-sponsored schemes, but it is unfortunate that there are reports of corruption."
She told election rallies at minority-dominated Kishanganj and Motihari that the Centre does not know what happened to the funds provided to the state.
On his part, Nitish Kumar, addressing an election rally in Paroo, accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of trying to shift the blame on the state government for "failure" of central agencies on the fund utilisation issue.
"It is unfortunate that a person like Singh is placing distorted facts before the people and seeking to blame the NDA government for the failure of central agencies in utilisation
of central assistance," he said.
Flaying the Nitish government for projecting a secular image, Gandhi said, "It just reflected the politics of opportunism and double face. A pecular type of alliance government is running in Bihar. While its leader claims to have a secular image, he has alliance with BJP which is dead opposed to secularism."
Gandhi slammed the state government for not giving land for establishment of a centre of the Aligarh Muslim University in Kishanganj despite clearances by the Centre.
"You have talked about Aligarh Muslim University. Everything is clear from the Centre but the government here is not giving land. It has not given the land so far," she said.
"There are difference in the development claim of the Nitish Kumar government," she alleged and wondered how many hours people had electricity in a day and what happened to the funds earmarked for education and health care.
She also questioned why no new industry was coming up in the state. "Students have to go outside the state for better education, opportunity and also for ensuring treatment of diseases," she said.
Hitting back at the Centre, Kumar said, "The Prime Minister should correct his statement that the special provision of Rs 1000 crore every year was made from 2004. It was actually made from 2002 and Congress has nothing to take credit for this," he said.