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Bizarre it may sound, but it’s true that Bihar’s Water Resources Department (WRD) Minister Lallan Singh has blamed the rats in the State for causing a flood in August this year.

This is in sharp contrast to the stand taken by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who blamed heavy rainfall in neighbouring Nepal for the cause of flood which claimed 514 lives in Bihar and affected 1.5 crore people in 18 out of 38 districts in the State.

“I have been informed that rats made deep holes in the embankments (on Kamla Balan river) thereby causing breach at several places. The heavy flow of water gushing down from the upstream Nepal further breached the embankments, already damaged by rats,” said WRD Minister Lallan Singh. The minister, however, added that the engineers of his department plugged the breach within 72 hours and helped avert a catastrophe.

Lallan’s assertion comes four days after Lalu Prasad said at Patna rally on August 27 that “this year’s flood was man-made, not nature’s wrath. The aim was two-pronged: One, to dissuade Lalu from holding ‘Desh Bachao, BJP Bhagao rally’. And second, contractors and engineers could mint money in the name of repairing embankments which get washed away year after year.”

On Friday, Lalu laughed at Lallan’s alibi that rats made holes and caused damage to embankments thereby flooding the areas. “Strange are rats of Bihar. Sometime back, rats were reported to have gulped hundreds of litres of liquor seized and stored at the different police station. And now rats are causing a flood,” guffawed Lalu.

Lalu was referring to police reports in May this year when the cops accused rodents of guzzling up confiscated liquor from malkhana (store).

“No body was ready to buy the bizarre claim of cops that rodents turned ‘drunkards’ and consumed around 9 lakh litres of seized alcohol stored in different malkhanas of police stations. No one will buy this claim by WRD minister that rats caused the flood in Bihar,” said senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who was Finance Minister in Nitish Cabinet until July 26.