What about Bihar's special status, asks Nitish at dharna

Senior Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Monday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for its false promises.

Pronouncing the prime minister’s name for the first time from a public platform, Kumar said, “Narendra Modi had told people of Bihar during poll campaign in clear terms that if his party is voted to power it will provide special category status, special package and special attention...but five months have lapsed since he came to power but there is no sign of fulfilling the promises.”

Alleging that National Democratic Alliance government was “discriminating” against Bihar, Kumar said, “They announced running a bullet train but Bihar did not get new trains or fund for pending projects like Digha-Sonepur Railway bridge over the Ganga.

Resource hit Bihar had spent Rs 1,000 crore on upkeep of national highways, but it is yet to be reimbursed to the state. Likewise the Centre has been told that crucial Gandhi setu over the Ganga is hanging dangerously, but there is no step from the Centre in this direction,” he said.

He said Bihar had formulated agriculture roadmap, but the Centre had not provided fund and stopped states from providing bonus to farmers in addition to minimum support price.

Accusing the Centre of misusing media for its  benefits, he said, “RSS programme was shown live on Doordarshan and they claimed it had news value. Who are you to decide news value...doesn’t JD-U agitation for special category status have news value?”

Pointing to incursion of Chinese army in India while its president was in the country and violation of ceasefire by Pakistan, he said BJP government had failed to live on its “tall claims” of teaching lessons to Pakistan and China.

“For everything they give the excuse that it’s honeymoon period of the government... but how long this honeymoon will continue?” he asked.

Kumar rubbished BJP’s charge that he was running the state government through remote control and said, “I do not believe in remote control as I am leading from front."