Patna: Bihar agriculture minister Sudhakar Singh on Tuesday said that no one in the RJD-JDU coalition government was willing to listen to him, adding that his suggestions were not given any priority in cabinet meetings as well. Singh, while speaking to ETV Bharat, noted that all issues he addressed came from feedback from the people and were not based on any personal agenda.
“We have been raising the issue of corruption in the government for a long time. Things are not changing, and the practice which used to exist earlier, exists now as well. No changes have been made so far. I will stand with people and their pain,” Singh said.
"When I give any suggestion in the cabinet meeting, nobody pays attention to it. When I raise any issue, no action is taken on it. It's true. I don't have any personal agenda, whatever I say in public domain is the exact thing I raise during cabinet meetings. I just take up the issue of our people and make my seniors aware of it. I work on the feedback of people" he added.
The minister, who is also the son of RJD state president Jagnanand Singh, said that he was not happy with the functioning of the government in any area. "When I make ground visits, I discover that things are getting worse. The agenda to run a government is based on both politics and ideology. If both these things are not implemented properly, then it is a serious problem" Singh observed.
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"We, as members of RJD, for the last 17 years, have had to resist and address this issue both inside the assembly and out in public domain. If things are still the same after all these years, then it is my duty as a public representative to hold up peoples' desires" ghe
Inquired whether he had a solution in hand, the minister said the only deterrent would be to cut off budget allocation to relevant departments. "The only solution for my department is to stop the budget. If no fund is allocated to my department, you will see it functioning better than before. All the officers of my department will start performing," he said.
Sudhakar also used the occasion to attack BJP and RSS over their population control policy with special reference to the statement of BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal, who recently claimed that population growth rate in Kishanganj and Araria districts was the highest in the world.
“BJP is the party which functions on the guidelines of RSS, and their statement regarding the population growth of a particular community in Seemanchal regions is baseless. I am surprised as to why RSS people are worried about fertility rate, when they do not get married. If at all this is the issue, they should first get married and have children,” he said.
Meanwhile, reacting to Singh's comment, BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said that rampant red tapism and bureaucratic menace was turning into suffering for common people in Bihar. "The acceptance by agriculture minister Sudhakar Singh regarding the mass corruption in his department is an eye opener to the government of Bihar. He has shown the mirror to the self obsessed Chief Minister of Bihar, Mr. Nitish Kumar. The CM often claims that there is a rule of common people but basically there is red tapism in Bihar and common masses are suffering because of bureaucratic rule" Anand said.
"The bureaucrats are not listening to the orders of the ministers; not to ask the voice of common masses be heard and their problems be solved. As the agricultural minister Sudhakar Singh has repeatedly said that he stands by his statement that there is corruption in his department, the Chief Minister of Bihar must accept that there is mass corruption in Bihar and a high level committee be formed to issue a white paper on massive corruption and red tapism in Bihar," the BJP leader observed.
