Hitting back at Union Minister of State for Water Resources Jaiprakash Narain Yadav, who blamed the Bihar Government for the breach in the Kosi embankment, the state’s Water Resources Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav on Saturday accused him of “playing dirty politics over human tragedy”. “Jaiprakash Narain Yadav is playing dirty politics over the human tragedy...his allegation is plain falsehood and baseless,” Bijendra Yadav told a press conference.

The minister said the Kosi High-Level Committee (KHLC) headed by chairman of the Ganga Flood Control Commission, under the jurisdiction of the Centre, had “hugely reduced” the estimate submitted by the state’s engineers for carrying out the flood protection work at Kusaha in Nepal. “Ignoring the estimates submitted by the engineers of state’s Water Resources Department, the KHLC approved just Rs 1.25 lakh for strengthening the spurs at the erosion point which was peanuts considering the scale of the work required,” he said.

The Bihar minister said the three letters the Union minister was referring to time and again to prove his charge of alleged neglect were part of the correspondence state’s engineers had with their counterparts in the Union Water Resources Ministry.