Midday meal tragedy: Nitish slams critics, say don't politicise deaths

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday slammed his critics over the midday meal tragedy saying the issue was being politicised and said he had been unable to visit the hospital because of ill health. The Chief Minister also blamed the RJD for calling a bandh while the state was trying to salvage the situation. “What is surprising is that while doctors were treating the children, bandhs were being called,” Nitish said. He said he couldn’t stoop low enough to politicise the incident. “There is no conflict with Sharad Yadav on the midday meal case … He has already issued clarification over the statements attributed to him,” Kumar told reporters as well. [caption id=“attachment_983103” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nitish Kumar. AFP[/caption] Nitish said that the police and the administrative authorities were stopped from entering the Saran village. “None of the people who stopped the police were from the village. Some people are trying to make sure the government could not carry out its job,” Nitish said. The Chief Minister continued to hint that the tragedy was not an accident. “It is a matter of investigation. High levels of pesticide in the midday meal indicates something. It was not just by coincidence,” he said. Nitish said that the police is currently questioning the principal of the Chhapra school, who surrendered earlier today. Assuring all steps are being taken to ensure that the survivors are in good health he said, “Whoever is the culprit will be brought to book.” Nitish announced a new high school for the Saran village where the tragedy occurred. “People of Saran village are very poor and we will introduce developmental schemes for the villagers. We cannot bring back the children, but we will make sure we provide all amenities for the people of the village,” he said. Accepting that the midday meal scheme needed some improvements, he said, “We have to learn a lesson from the incident and bring improvements in the scheme. We need more cooks and better infrastructure for running the scheme.” “We have to take the midday meal scheme as a challenge. We have to do this together with the Centre. We cannot fight over it,” Nitish said. On many demanding a CBI probe into the matter, he said “It has become a fashion these days to ask for a CBI probe into every matter.” Heaping praise on the doctors who treated the children in Chhapra, he said, “It is not right to blame the doctors. They did a remarkable job in saving the children.” Nitish also said that the Bihar government needs to take steps to improve the health sector. “Health services have scope of improvement and will certainly be made better,” he said.