The rats are at it again in Bihar. Four months after Bihar Police officials claimed that rats had guzzled several lakh litres of seized alcohol a Bihar minister has now blamed them for the devastating floods that have killed more than 510 people in the state this year.
Following a review of the flood situation in the state, Bihar Water Resources Department (WRD) minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh blamed the rodents for damaging embankments, which ultimately led to flooding in the nearby areas.
The minister cited the example of River Kamla Balan that originates in Nepal. "The river is far from the embankment and the villagers residing in nearby areas usually store their foodgrains on elevated platforms built over the embankments. The rats create holes to reach the grains and that causes seepage in the embankments," Singh said.
Interestingly, while Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had said heavy rains in Nepal and silt in rivers were responsible for the floods that affected 1.71 crore people in 8,300 villages of the state, RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav had called it a manmade disaster, caused due to incompetent engineers and ill-preparedness of the government.
Singh's statement has given fresh ammo to the Opposition and Lalu immediately took to Twitter to take a dig at the government. "Incredible! Do you know Bihar floods have come due to rats? No? Then find out. Nitish will tell how rats have brought flood in Bihar."
"Sometimes the rat is drinking liquor. On other instances, it is making holes in the embankments… these are only excuses. There is a lot of corruption in the water resources departments. What type of flood preparedness had they done by spending so much money?" RJD legislator Shakti Singh Yadav said.
"The government had said the embankments are safe. Then how come the floods happened? Action should be taken against the officials responsible for it," a BJP MLA said, declining to be named.
