Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday engaged in an X (formerly Twitter) war of words with Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav over the construction of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Darbhanga.
Taking to X, Yadav had posted,”Today, the prime minister was taking false credit for opening the AIIMS in Darbhanga. The reality is that the Bihar government allocated 151 acres of land to the Centre free of cost and also allocated ₹250 crore for land filling. But due to politics, the Centre did not clear the construction for AIIMS. The country expects PM to speak truth but he spoke a white lie”.
“In June, I even spoke to the Union health minister over telephone and urged him to approve the construction. I even wrote a letter to him but there has been no positive action”, the deputy chief minister wrote.
Hitting back at the Bihar deputy CM, Mandaviya posted,”Tejashwi Ji, Modi government does not do politics over development but it believes in politics of development. Our intentions are clear. The Centre had approved AIIMS Darbhanga’s construction on September 19, 2020 and the Bihar government allocated land on November 2021.
“Then you came to power and changed the land on April 30, 2023 due to political reasons. As per law, the expert committee inspected the plot. On May 26, the Centre wrote on letter to the Bihar government saying the new plot allocated by your government is not suitable for construction. Why was the plot changed and for whose interests?”, Mandaviya added, referring to a screenshot of a letter attached with the post.
The letter signed by health secretary Rajesh Bhushan mentions that the alternate site had certain “potential disadvantages, making the execution of the project on this site more complex”. The health ministry letter mentions some reasons before urging the Bihar government to provide some other suitable land for the creation of AIIMS.
“In the Bihar assembly, what did your MLA say on the land not being suitable? Rise above politics and allot land for the construction of AIIMS. We are ready to build AIIMS in Bihar”, the health minister said.