Nitish Kumar lashes out at BJP over denial of special category status to Bihar

Patna, Aug 4: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday Aug 3, attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government over not fulfilling the promise to grant Bihar the "special category status".

Kumar, who has made Bihar's special status a major poll plank, said outside the Legislative Council that "people should understand this betrayal...its a cruel joke with the people of Bihar."

On July 31, Union Minister of state for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh had made a statement in the Lok Sabha saying, "there is no proposal as of now to grant special status to any state. There is a proposal to give special package."

Kumar retaliated on Singh's statement by saying, "Their conscience is not clear."

Kumar, who would be the face of secular alliance in the coming assembly election 2015, said that his party would continue to play audio recording of Modi's speech promise when the BJP comes at the centre after election promises of providing special attention to Bihar.[Bihar: JD(U) attacks BJP over denial of special status]

"There cannot be a bigger joke than this," Kumar said on flagging off Suvidha Express by the Prime Minister during his Patna visit on July 25 in which the Chief Minister was also present.

"Earlier we had heard about people standing in queue to board a train but this is for the first time we are hearing that people have to stand in queue to demand running of a train," he said.

"Its the rarest of rare event. The train he flagged off would run only when people would place demand for it like they do to book a train for marriage or some other special occasion," Kumar, who himself served as Railway minister during the A B Vajpayee led-NDA regime, said.

Kumar said he was waiting to see the announcements made by the Prime Minister regarding special package to Bihar.[Special status for Bihar to be key assembly poll plank]

"Its clear-cut violation of concept of 'cooperative federalism' by ignoring the state and promising to announce a special package for Bihar from a political platform to derive political mileage," he said ahead of the Prime Minister's visit to Bihar on August 9, 18 and 23 at Gaya, Saharsa and Bhagalpur respectively to drum up support for BJP in the assembly poll.

Kumar has been pitching for special category status for Bihar since long time and BJP had supported his demand when it was in alliance with JDU.

In Bihar, on July 25, while kicking off his party's poll campaign, PM Modi had promised to give it a package "bigger" than Rs 50,000 crore which he had announced earlier. Modi had said he would make an announcement at an appropriate time.

OneIndia News

(with PTI inputs)