JD-U MLA Mewalal Choudhary has left office after protests over his appointment as Education Minister. Questions are now being raised regarding a 2017 FIR against him and why Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appointed him in the first place.
In what is being described as an inauspicious beginning for the newly appointed Nitish Kumar government, Bihar’s education minister and JD-U MLA Mewalal Choudhary resigned from his post within less than 72 hours of taking oath.
Choudhary, who had met the CM on Wednesday, submitted his resignation on Thursday afternoon, following protests from various quarters over his appointment in the Nitish cabinet.
The 67-year-old Choudhary, who is a JDU MLA from Tarapur in Munger, was suspended from the party by Nitish Kumar himself in 2017 after an FIR had been registered against him over alleged irregularities in appointments during his tenure as the vice chancellor of the Bihar Agriculture University, Sabour, in Bhagalpur district. President Ram Nath Kovind, who was then the Governor of Bihar, had constituted an inquiry commission to probe the charges against Choudhary after the then Leader of Opposition, Sushil Modi, had written to Kovind.
Sources said that the antecedents of the MLAs who were to take oath on Monday were also vetted by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who had come to Patna for the oath-taking ceremony on Monday. The fact that Nitish and his advisors ignored the pending case against Choudhary has also raised questions on why he was picked up in the first place. More important to note is that it was Nitish’s closest associate in the BJP, Sushil Modi, who had sought the inquiry against Choudhary in 2017.
As per Choudhary’s election affidavit, an FIR, 35/2017, had been registered by the Sabour police station against him, under sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code for “irregularities in the construction of buildings and in the appointments of 161 Assistant and Junior Scientists while he was the VC of Bihar Agriculture University”. The case is being heard by a court in Bhagalpur. After the February 2017 FIR, Choudhary had gone underground, following which, the JDU had suspended him – a step which had been termed by JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar as an ‘example of the good governance of Nitish Kumar”.
The said irregularities in the appointments were allegedly done by Choudhary in 2012, which had come to light after he demitted office in 2015. The Bihar Agriculture University later constituted a probe committee headed by Justice (retired) Syed Mohammed Mahfooz Alam of the Patna High court.
According to Patna-based political observers, the continuance of Choudhary had become untenable as his presence would have hurt the BJP’s promise of good governance and the fact that its campaign was focused against the ‘jungle raj’ of the RJD during the Lalu-Rabri rule. “The BJP prevailed upon Nitish to remove Choudhary from the cabinet. BJP is numerically the strongest party in the alliance and it will, in the near future too, ensure that Nitish does not take any step which hurts the image of the BJP,” a Patna-based political observer said. Significantly, earlier this week, Bihar IPS officer Amitabh Kumar Das wrote a letter to the state DGP, alleging that Choudhary’s wife, Neeta, who died due at her home after suffering burn injuries on 27 May 2019, was killed due to a political conspiracy and that her death was related to the irregularities that had taken place at the agriculture university under Choudhary’s tenure. He has asked the police chief to constitute an SIT and question Choudhary.