Bihar polls: BJP-Cong-JD(U) war of words heats up

Patna, Oct 15: Days ahead of the Bihar Assembly Polls, the war of words between Congress, JD(U) and BJP has heated up.

After Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as well as Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lashed out against the Congress General Secretary over his claim that the UPA government provided more funds for development of Bihar.

Bihar BJP president CP Thakur, who contended that the Centre used to allocate the funds in accordance with the Gadgil formula, sought an explaination from Rahul Gandhi as to whether an extra favour had been given to Bihar during the past five years.

"We strongly castigate such statement. Not only Bihar, but other states use to receive Centre's assistance in keeping with the Gadgil formula. The state also receives its share in central taxes," he said, accusing the Centre of not doing enough for the victims of 2008 Kosi floods.

"Even Centre blocked several proposals worth thousands of crores of rupees for investment in ethanol sector by putting restrictions on manufacture of ethanol through sugarcane juice," he added.

Charging the Congress-led UPA government of ignoring Bihar's development, the BJP leader stressed that NDA government in Bihar had taken a number of steps for ensuring all-round growth.

These statements come after Rahul Gandhi slammed JD(U) leader, Nitish Kumar, an old ally of BJP in the state. Charging the BJP of being a 'communal party', Rahul attacked Nitish's attempts to severe ties with BJP to win votes of all communities ahead of the state assembly polls.

The young Congress leader's statements came in response to Nitish Kumar's earlier allegations that Bihar's development was ignored.

OneIndia News