Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on <g data-gr-id="21">Sundaylaunched</g> a blistering attack on the Narendra Modi government for not fulfilling its promise to accord special category status to Bihar which is posing as a great impediment to big ticket investment in the state.
He tore into the Centre’s argument that there was no provision for providing special category status as there was no mention of it in the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations. “<g data-gr-id="22">Its</g> in your hand whether to keep some provision or not,” Kumar said at an interactive session with <g data-gr-id="19">mediapersons</g> here as part of the programme “Breakfast with the CM”.
“You talked about providing special status to Bihar but while time to <g data-gr-id="23">fullfill</g> it comes, ‘ulta <g data-gr-id="25">kalaam</g>’ runs,” Kumar said as a match to PM’s barb at him recently that while “Ganga (of development) was flowing from the Centre, the head of the state of Bihar is holding his ‘lota <g data-gr-id="26">ulta</g>’”. The CM’s comments was in the context of Union Minister of State for Planning Rao Indrajit Singh’s reply in Parliament in the just completed monsoon session that there was no provision for providing special category status to Bihar and others.
Kumar again stressed the need for special category status to Bihar and said policy support from the Centre could help Bihar take a “big jump” in development. Special category status would be an important poll issue of Kumar in the coming Bihar election. The Bihar CM also raised the DNA barb of the PM and earlier to that of Union Surface Transport minister Nitin Gadkari that “casteism is in DNA of Bihar.”