Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s claims of transparency and accountability are “an eyewash”, Parveen Amanullah, a Minister in Mr. Kumar’s Cabinet, who recently quit the post and the Janata Dal (United) to join the Aam Aadmi Party, told The Hindu . Ms. Amanullah is the AAP candidate from the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat. She filed her nomination here on Monday. She was accompanied by AAP leader Manish Sisodia.“The day I left Mr. Kumar’s government, I told him that the Right to Information Act had been ruined in the State. That was my main grouse. Mr. Kumar has appointed bureaucrats as information officers and they are never going to give any information. Mr. Kumar has not worked on transparency and accountability. His claims are just an eyewash,” Ms. Amanullah, a former RTI activist, said.
As Minister, she had raised the issue of false cases against RTI activists in Bihar. “I handled about 50 false cases, which were lodged by officers, when someone asked them for information. But the government did not do anything,” she said.
In Patna Sahib, Ms. Amanullah is up against a formidable rival in sitting MP and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Shatrughan Sinha, and Gopal Prasad Sinha of the JD (U). Ms. Amanullah said she had a good chance of winning against Mr. Sinha, who had “failed to address any issues in the constituency.”
“I am not a stranger. I have worked in Patna for 12 years. The people know my work,” she said.
Ms. Amanullah’s nomination was marked by a black flag protest led by Rekha Modi, cousin of BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who opposed her candidature saying she was “a turncoat.”
