Nitish Kumar caught in plagiarism controversy

PATNA - Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is in the eye of a storm after being accused of plagiarism by a researcher who claims that politician’s new book, which was slated to be released here Friday, is a copy of his research paper.

Atul Kumar Singh, a senior researcher at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, released his original paper in the varsity Thursday night to prove his plagiarism charges against the Janata Dla-United (JD-U) chief.

In the past few days, local dailies had widely reported that Nitish Kumar had written the 80 page book ‘Special Category Status - A Case for Bihar’. The government had issued no denial.

‘I was shocked when I realised that the book was a copy of my research paper. I could have never in my wildest imagination think that the chief minister would use my work and claim it to be his,’ Singh told IANS on phone from New Delhi.

Singh had Thursday claimed that he had submitted his paper to the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and it was later copied by Nitish Kumar.

In response to Singh’s allegations, the chief minister’s office said Nitish Kumar was only endorsing the book brought out by the ADRI and had not authored it.

The book was to be unveiled here Friday by renowned economist Lord Meghnad Desai. JD-U sources said Nitish Kumar was likely to skip the function.

Singh’s allegations came just a day before the results of the Lok Sabha elections. Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have expressed confidence that they will sweep Bihar in the polls.

Singh, who belongs to Bihar’s Saran district, had contested the Lok Sabha elections from Chapra constituency in 2004 as an independent.