Days After Taking Charge, Bihar Minister Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations

Mewalal Choudhary, the newly sworn-in Education Minister of Bihar, has resigned three days after taking oath amid allegations of corruption.

Mewalal Choudhary, the newly sworn-in Education Minister of Bihar, has resigned three days after taking oath amid allegations of corruption. Choudhary met CM Nitish Kumar to submit his resignation.

“An accusation is proven only when a chargesheet is filed or a court gives an order and neither of the two is there to prove the allegations against me,” Choudhary was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

After Nitish Kumar appointed Choudhary as education minister, the opposition RJD had attacked the government.

Manoj Jha, the RJD MP, told the Indian Express: “The choice of Mewalal Choudhary as education minister makes such a loud statement about the CM’s weakened position in the new scheme of things post-verdict. A clear message has gone to Bihar that one cannot expect anything positive from the government with these kinds of choices dominating the constitution of the cabinet.”.

Jha also reminded that Nitish Kumar tried to take a “high moral ground” over a “non-case” of corruption when he walked out of the Grand Alliance in 2017, bringing down the coalition government with RJD and Congress.

The case against Choudhary goes back in time when he was vice-chancellor of Bihar Agriculture University at Sabaur in Bhagalpur. He and about 50 others had been first booked in 2017 under IPC sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B. The case was related to alleged discrepancies in the appointment of 167 assistant-cum-junior scientists at the newly-opened agriculture university during Choudhary’s tenure as V-C between 2010 and 2015. Chaudhary had declared it in his 2020 election affidavit and was elected MLA from Tarapur in Munger.