Bihar Election: RJD slams 'ignorant' Nitish Kumar for mishandling COVID as 2 ministers die

As the upcoming Bihar elections is the first election in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the RJD has stepped up its attack on the Nitish Kumar government over its handling of the situation. This comes after two ministers of Nitish's cabinet have lost their lives to COVID in the past one week. As the campaign for the first phase of assembly polls gains momentum, RJD accused Nitish of being ignorant and said that the state government is not doing enough to tackle the problem.

"Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is ignorant regarding COVID-19 and is not concerned about the lives of people. Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey is doing nothing to tackle the situation and is only concerned about winning state elections. The people of Bihar are observing all this and will not forgive this government," Yadav, who is the Chief Ministerial face of Mahagathbandhan, told news agency ANI.

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On the same line, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Chirag Paswan has also alleged that JDU rallies and jansabhas show that social distancing rules are not being followed. He alleged that Nitish Kumar "does not trust" Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "did not ask for President's rule" to defer the elections till the COVID-19 situation improved further.

Bihar's total COVID-19 case count stands at 2,02,290, including 981 deaths and 10,884 active cases. On Saturday, contrary to Tejashwi Yadav's claim, state Health Minister Mangal Pandey said that the recovery rate in the state has touched 94.24%, "which is the highest among all states of India and countries having registered more than one lakh positive cases." However, the state's Minister for Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare Vinod Singh, 50, who was a BJP MLA from the Pranpur assembly constituency of Katihar district, passed away on Monday and State Panchayati Raj Minister Kapil Deo Kamat passed away in AIIMS Patna on Friday.

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Tejashwi Yadav releases Mahagathbandhan manifesto

Earlier on Saturday, Tejashwi Yadav released the joint manifesto along with Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala, Shaktisinh Gohil and CPI, CPI(M), CPI-ML leaders of the State. Addressing the media, Tejashwi Yadav said that the main agenda of the Mahagathbandhan government will be to provide employment and stop the migration of people due to the unavailability of jobs. Reiterating his promise of providing 10 lakh jobs in his first cabinet meeting, if he is elected as the CM, Tejashwi Yadav also talked about the "special status" demand and took a jibe saying "Trump will not give special status to Bihar." Taking a swipe at Nitish Kumar and PM Modi, Tejashwi added, "My DNA is pure."

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Bihar elections 2020

The 243 members assembly of Bihar will go to polls in three phases - October 28, November 3, November 7 and counting of votes will take place on November 10. This year's Bihar elections will witness the clash of as many as five alliances. In the 2015 state polls, the Mahagatbandhan comprising RJD, JD(U) and Congress won a whopping majority with 178 seats under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. On the other hand, the BJP-led alliance won from only 58 constituencies. On July 26, 2017, Nitish Kumar stepped down as the CM citing irreconcilable differences with RJD over corruption allegations against Tejashwi Yadav and joined hands with its former ally BJP.

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