Modi denies ignoring commoners during rain triggered woes

A day after a group of people gheraoed Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's residence in Rajendra Nagar area over problem of waterlogging, his close aide said despite waiting for an hour neither any delegation of the protestors came to him on Monday nor any memorandum was submitted on their behalf.

Angry over problem of waterlogging and accumulation of trash, some people of Rajendra Nagar had on Sunday gheraoed Modi's residence located in the same area.

The BJP leader, however, was not present at the house during the protest. He waited on Monday to hear them.

The statement said that the government had been sensitive towards both the VIPs and the commoners during the disaster arising on account of incessant rains for three consecutive days at the end of September.

A total of 59,000 affected people of Rajendra Nagar were rescued at that time, a release issued by the Dy CM office said.

"Despite waiting for an hour for victims of waterlogged Rajendra Nagar area today, neither any delegation came to meet him nor any memorandum was submitted to him by the people," Modi's private secretary Shailendra Kumar Ojha said in the release.

On September 30, Modi and his family members were rescued by an SDRF team from his flooded residence in Rajendra Nagar. However, they returned later to the house.

The state capital was pounded by heavy rain late last month leading to waterlogging in areas such as Rajendra Nagar, Kankarbagh and Pataliputra colony.

Those rescued from the area included people living in hostels, coaching students- both girls and boys- ailing people and needy persons, the release said.

Out of 39 motorboats run by both SDRF and NDRF during rescue and relief operations, 26 were run alone in Rajendra Nagar area, Modi said and added that out of eight ambulances, six were operational in that colony and 20 out of the 80 water tankers were stationed there.

Out of 20,000 milk and dry milk packets, 11,000 of them were distributed in Rajendra Nagar, the release said quoting Modi.

Of the 1,97,940 water bottles, 90,000 were distributed in Rajendra Nagar area apart from making available 25,000 pouches of water.