It has just been two days that Bihar has got a new yet old government for the next five years and the controversy has come along with it. This time the controversy revolves around the 'tainted' Education Minister who is part of Nitish Kumar's cabinet.
Janata Dal-United (JDU) legislator, Mewalal Choudhary, who is appointed as the Education Minister is accused of corruption.
His appointment is being questioned by a key opposition party- Rashtriya Janata Dal, as the JDU ignored the legislators from minority communities.
Mr. Choudhary, however, has dismissed all allegations leveled on him and termed it as 'baseless'. Notably, Choudhary is corruption-accused in the case of building construction and irregularities in appointments to posts of assistant professor and junior scientist when he was the vice-chancellor of Bhagalpur agriculture university in 2017.
In a series of tweets, Tejashwi Yadav 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 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 wrote.
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RJD chief Lalu Yadav, who is currently lodged in jail for a corruption scam has also targeted the BJP and the JDU over the appointment saying those who were searching for Mewalal Choudhary earlier are now silent.
"In contrast to Tejashwi Yadav's 10 lakh jobs priority, Bihar now has Nitish Kumar whose priority reflects in appointment of Mewalal Choudhary," he tweeted.
Mr. Choudhary is the Tarapur MLA who was suspended from the JDU in 2017 but re-inducted later.
Back then, Nitish Kumar was the chief minister with the support of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the BJP, then in opposition, had sought Mr. Choudhary's arrest.
A criminal case was filed against him after sanction by the then Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind, who ordered a probe into allegations of corruption and irregularities in appointments. However, a chargesheet is yet to be registered against him.