Nitish Kumar a poor administrator, says ex-minister

The buoyant growth rate of Bihar may have brought much praise from industry leaders for chief minister Nitish Kumar, but the CM seems to be battling lack of support from his own partymen.

Jamshed Ashraf, a Janata Dal-United (JD(U)) legislator and former minister in the Nitish cabinet on Tuesday dubbed the CM as a “poor administrator who is shielding corrupt officers”.

Ashraf’s outburst comes just two weeks after the chief minister’s one-time confidante Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lalan resigned from the post of JD(U)’s Bihar unit president protesting Nitish’s “autocratic functioning”.

Ashraf, who represents Ballia in the assembly and was the excise minister, said, “Nitish Kumar is an honest man, but a weak administrator. He has no grip over bureaucrats and officers in the state.”