Nitish Kumar attacks Centre

on special status issue

NEW DELHI: Amid indications that the Congress may ally with the RJD for Lok Sabha polls, an apparently upset Nitish Kumar on Monday attacked the UPA government over the failure to grant special status to Bihar saying its priorities changed because of the upcoming elections.

The Bihar chief minister refused comment on the possibility of the Congress forging an alliance with the RJD led by his bete noire Lalu Prasad, dismissing it as "their decision" about which his party was not concerned.

"It seemed for a while that the Centre was serious (about special status). It took some initiatives. It now seems to have developed cold feet. The issue is in cold storage. Elections are coming. It will be a big issue for us," Kumar said while addressing a conference on "Bihar Kal, Aaj aur Kal - governance at the grassroots: A model for India".

Turning philosophical, the JD(U) leader quipped, "Waqt-waqt ki baat hai (It all depends on times). Time changes. The wheel of time rotates all the while. It favours somebody at one time, it favours somebody else at another time."

Kumar had been consistently soft on the Congress after he called off his party's alliance with the BJP over the elevation of Narendra Modi earlier this year. The Congress had dropped hints of courting the JD(U) but lately it seems inclined to have a tie-up with the RJD. Asked if he was disappointed over a possible alliance between the Congress and the RJD, the CM said his party was never in talks with the former for any alliance. "This (tie up with RJD) is their decision...There was never any talk between us....Bihar wants special status and it is our right. We will get it," he said.

In an apparent reference to Prasad, he said somebody after coming out of jail was behaving as if he was behind bars for participating in "freedom movement".

Kumar launched an attack on the Gujarat chief minister saying dreams were being sold to people that somebody with a magic wand would solve all problems facing the country. "The discourse in the country has changed and neither growth nor growth model is being discussed," Kumar said as he hit out at Modi without naming him.

"These days a dream is being shown that a magic wand will come. It has left space and entered our atmosphere. It will come and all problems will disappear. Our problems at the borders will go. There won't be any problem with Pakistan, China and Bangladesh," he said sarcastically.

Some people have even started buying this dream, he said adding that they did not seem interested when he speaks about education of girls. "School education? They seem to suggest what rubbish am I talking," he said.

His long speech centered on development in his backward state and how it has transformed lives of the people in the past 10 years, but he intermittently kept attacking the BJP and its PM candidate.

"Some people want to blow the wind from west to east but the east has been the centre of knowledge. They should know the Sun rises from the east and it sets in the west," he said. Many in the audience believed he was referring to Modi's home state of Gujarat.

Kumar said his government was investing 24% of its budget on education which no other state has done, adding that educational empowerment was key to Bihar's future success as the scope for industrial investment there was limited.

He blamed a skewed developmental model for the economic slowdown, saying it relied heavily on the growth of a few developed states while left the others neglected.

Source : TOI

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