Patna: Senior JD(U) leader Shivanand Tiwari today described 42 per cent malnourishment rate among the children below five years as the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s `shame` and not that of the country and attributed the problem to the latter`s wrong economic policies.
"The PM should treat 42 per cent malnourishment among the children as his personal shame and not that of the country as he has led the economic reforms since the past two decades," he told reporters here.
"Singh should take moral responsibility for high malnourishment among the children and poverty in the rural areas," Tiwari and attacked the economic reforms undertaken by the former, first as the finance minister and then as the prime minister in the past two decades.
The PM should realise that his economic reforms process has created a wide gulf between the rich and the poor in the country in which only 10 per cent people have benefited, while the rest of the population were struggling for livelihood. The JD(U) MP criticised the PM for often referring to malnourishment figure among children as national shame, but doing precious little to alleviate their conditions and said that there was no no reference to this problem and its redressal in the last budget.
The UPA government should ensure that the plight of the children must be addressed in the next budget, Tiwari said. PTI