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Bid to humiliate Bihar: Rabri

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, shakes hands with the RJD chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav, at a Chief Ministers' Conclave organised by India Today in New Delhi on Saturday. — PTI

New Delhi May 10. The Bihar Chief Minister, Rabri Devi, today walked out of a conclave of Chief Ministers organised by India Today in the capital after the State was named by the magazine as the worst in the country saying the meet was called to "humiliate" the eastern State.

Before leaving the conclave in a huff, Ms. Rabri Devi alleged that a few so-called intellectuals in Delhi were trying to project wrong facts and figures without verifying ground realities.

The visibly angry Chief Minister told reporters that the figures presented at the conclave were manipulated with ulterior motives. "The figures do not match either those provided by the Central Government in Parliament or those of the Planning Commission and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)," she said. The survey did not reflect the real position of the State and had been carried out on unscientific parameters, ignoring ground realities, to malign the people of Bihar.

However, her husband and Rashtriya Janata Dal president, Laloo Prasad Yadav, stayed on at the conclave and in his address produced official records to expose the "hollowness" of the claims made by India Today. As compared to several other States, Bihar had a much better record on crime against women and weaker sections of society, he said. "Whether it is crime against members of the Scheduled Castes or children or incidents of police firing, Bihar has a much better record than various other States," he pointed out.

Mr. Yadav also made a scathing attack on the Central Government and the Planning Commission for "discriminating" against Bihar in the allocation of funds.

Recalling that at the time of carving Jharkhand out of Bihar the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had promised a special package for the State, the RJD chief said, "till today not a single paisa had been given". "Delhi, the power centre, has been built with our own money and it is ignoring Bihar," he said, asserting that "Bihar will not beg but move ahead".

He said in agricultural production, Bihar was among the leading states in the country. Similarly, the state had a great record of communal harmony.

``The figures presented in the special edition of India Today are aimed at tarnishing the image of the state, an attempt which has been on ever since independence,'' the RJD chief said.

Besides being last among 19 States, Bihar was also declared the worst State with regard to law and order, education, infrastructure, investment scenario, and consumer market. It has been ranked 16th in the sphere of health and agriculture.

PTI, UNI

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