Patna, February 19 RJD MP Sudhakar Singh has urged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to sever ties with the Gates Foundation, headed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose name has surfaced in the Epstein files.
Singh, a former state minister who now represents Buxar in the Lok Sabha, shared his two-page letter to the JD(U) supremo on his social media handles.
The name of Gates appeared in documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In his letter, dated February 17, the MP alleges that he was "surprised to learn that the Gates Foundation was working with the Bihar government on policy matters, and that these collaborations are both authorized and unauthorized".
Persons recruited by the Gates Foundation, who draw lakhs of rupees per month in salary, have been appointed as assistants to many senior IAS officers in Bihar. Thus, they have easy access to information regarding government schemes and policies, alleges Singh.
"Now that the Chairman himself is under scrutiny, with his name appearing in the Epstein files, it would be appropriate for the government to distance itself from the Gates Foundation and launch an investigation into how its appointees were allowed to work in close association with the state's bureaucracy," the letter reads.
According to information available on the website of the Gates Foundation, it has a decade-old "partnership with the Government of Bihar to improve health outcomes in the areas of maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, immunization, and the elimination of infectious diseases".
