Bihar Education Minister resigns hours after taking charge over corruption row
New Delhi: It seems the fourth term of Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is "full of thorns" as it started with controversy and then the resignation of newly inducted Education Minister Mewalal Choudhary, who stepped down just hours after taking the charge as he got embroiled in a controversy over recruitment scam in Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour.
The decision to sack Mewalal was taken to "control the damage" after the Opposition RJD raked up the issue of the three-year-old corruption case against him and questioning the intent of the Bihar CM, who had once snapped his ties with RJD over alleged corruption charges against the then deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.
Notably, Millennium Post had reported on Wednesday that 'retired' IPS officer Amitabh Kumar Das has alleged Mewalal's role in his wife's mysterious death by writing a letter to the Bihar DGP and sought a probe into the death of former MLA Neeta Choudhary — the wife of Mewalal.
A criminal case was filed against the JD(U) MLA from Tarapur back in 2017 after allegations that he was involved in irregularities in the appointments to posts of assistant professor and junior scientists as the vice-chancellor of Bihar Agriculture University, Sabour. He was even suspended from the party for a while after the BJP, which was in the opposition at the time, had launched a scathing attack against the Nitish government. The case was filed and investigations were conducted against him after sanction from President Ram Nath Kovind, who was then the Governor of Bihar. However, no chargesheet has been filed against him yet.
While defending himself, Choudhary had said that filing of a case is no indication of guilt as there several legislators against whom cases have been filed.
However, he also claimed that he was the informer in the case and has not done anything wrong.
Meanwhile, in a series of tweets, Tejashwi Yadav had accused four-time Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of appointing "criminals" to retain power in the state.
"Power is protecting criminals. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has granted an exemption to loot and robbery by appointing Mewalal Chaudhary. The Chief Minister will continue his discourse on crime, corruption and communalism to save his chair. None of the minority communities were made ministers," he posted. Accusing the Chief Minister of scripting a "drama" of the induction and resignation of a "corrupt" minister, Yadav on Thursday said, "The real culprit is you. Why did you make him a minister?? Your duplicity and gimmick will no longer be allowed to run."
