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No jobs in Bihar, workers forced to face bullets: RJD

Opposition RJD has blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the death of the State’s migrant workers in Jammu and Kashmir. Leader of Opposition and party leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday said people were forced to migrate since there were no jobs in the State.

Daily wage workers Raja Reshi Dev and Joginder Reshi Dev were killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district, while another migrant, Chunchun Reshi Dev, was grievously injured. A total of 11 civilians have died in targeted shooting in the Union Territory.

Kumar has spoken to Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha and announced a compensation of ₹2lakh each to the families of the victims. “Double engine government’s double whammy, won’t provide employment in Bihar and if you go out to earn a living you will be killed,” Yadav tweeted. The cost of a Bihari’s life, he alleged, was pegged at mere ₹2 lakh.

“Nitish Kumar and his incompetent government are also equally guilty of the brutal murder of Biharis. If the NDA government had really done anything seriously on employment generation as per their claim of ‘good governance’ in the last 16 years, then crores of Biharis would not have been forced to migrate and die every year,” he stated.

The RJD has demanded that all the migrant workers from Bihar who are living under distress in J&K should be brought back. They should also be paid ₹ 10,000 a month to compensate them for loss of livelihood. RJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Manoj K Jha observed, “The Chief Minister’s silence speaks volumes. What stops him from speaking out against the union government.”

Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) president Chirag Paswan too sought to corner Kumar on the issue. He remarked, “My question to Nitish ji is that if there were ample job opportunities in Bihar, would the sons of Bihar be forced to face terrorists’ bullets in Kashmir?”

The Janata Dal (U) shot back, saying J&K was not under the jurisdiction of Kumar. Party secretary general K.C. Tyagi accused the RJD of politicising a sensitive issue to divert the attention from its own family feud.

“The Chief Minister has spoken to the Lt Governor. All the migrant workers from Bihar and U.P. have been directly connected to the local police stations. The Bihar government is doing all that it could do within its powers,” he added.