Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday took an indirect dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi while voicing displeasure over the Centre’s “refusal” to grant special category status to the state.
In a free-wheeling conversation with journalists at Buxar district, which he toured as part of his state-wide mass outreach programme ‘Samadhan Yatra’, Kumar referred to Modi, formerly his Gujarat counterpart, coming from “a rich state” while accusing the latter of “being oblivious of the needs of poor provinces”.
“Bihar would have made unimaginable progress had our long-standing demand for a special status been accepted. We are making do with whatever resources we can marshal,” said the JD(U) leader who had pulled the plug on the alliance with the BJP less than six months ago.
The provision of granting special status had been in place to support the backward states, which must progress if the nation is to prosper, he said.
“One must not be indifferent to poorer states just because one comes from a rich state”, said Kumar, without mentioning Modi by name.
“His state has always been a developed one (hamesha se vikasit rajya raha hai). It has been so since the British era,” said the Bihar CM, once seen as a “secular” challenger to Modi, whose famed “Gujarat model” has often been damned with faint praise by the socialist leader.
Kumar refused to comment on the meeting hosted by his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao, which is being seen as an attempt to form an alternative front that would be opposed to the BJP but also exclude the Congress, which is a constituent of the ruling “Mahagathbandhan” in Bihar.
He responded with a wry smile and a cryptic “sab baat aap logon ko pata hi hai (you people know it all)” to queries about the show cause notice issued by his principal ally RJD against its recalcitrant MLA Sudhaker Singh for comments against the CM.
Singh had landed the ruling coalition into an embarrassment with frequent vituperations against the JD(U) leader.
With inputs from News18
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