PATNA, Nov 4: Speaking at a massive rally here, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said the Centre was discriminating against his state by denying the special status for which he had made repeated pleas and promised to fight till it was granted.
Flanked by JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav, Kumar told the ‘Adhikar’ rally, at the culmination of months-long “Adhikar Yatras”, at the historic Gandhi Maidan here that the UPA government had never considered the issue ‘sincerely’.
“After the Bihar Assembly passed an unanimous resolution for providing special category state status to Bihar in 2009, an all-party delegation repeatedly sought appointments with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but it was not given,” he alleged.
The state legislative council also passed similar resolutions but it also did not yield any result, he said.
“We continued to raise the issue at every platform, including in the National Development Council meeting, and even wrote letters to the PM but to no avail,” he said.
Kumar appealed to the people to vote for only that party in the 2014 general elections which would promise to deliver the special category status.
He demanded that the Centre set up a fresh committee to draw a strategy to provide special assistance to Bihar and other states who figure much below the national average in terms of per capita income, consumption of power, education, health among others to bring them into mainstream.
Kumar also announced that JD(U) would hold a massive rally in Delhi’s Ramlila maidan in March next year, to put pressure on the Centre to grant the special status which, he said, would pull the state at par with the national level on development indexes.
With the rally considered as an exercise by Kumar to showcase his mass appeal among people before the 2014 general elections, he said, “People of Bihar who have significantly contributed to the development of the country are no longer ready to accept this neglect and will fight the injustice.”
Kumar alleged, “The inter-ministerial group, constituted by the Centre to look into the demand for the special status on the instruction of the Prime Minister, seems to have made up its mind to reject it even before the process of consultation is completed.”
While rejecting the demand, the committee gave only four days time to the state to present its point of view, and submitted its report saying, the state did not fulfil the five conditions.
Conditions required for a state to qualify for a special status includes its being a hill state, predominant tribal population and low population density.
“Though Bihar is not a hill state, the river emanating from the mighty Himalayas is creating havoc in the state through flood every year… It is the responsibility of the Centre to talk to Nepal to find a solution to recurring floods. It has failed to fulfil its responsibility,” Kumar declared.
Kumar said the state lagged behind the national average in terms of per capita income, development, consumption of electricity, health and road among others and “it will take at least 25 years to come to the national average if things move at the pace it is doing now.”
JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, who spoke before Kumar, also charged the Centre with according a “step-motherly” treatment to Bihar by denying it special assistance through special category status, particularly after its division in 2000 to carve out Jharkhand.
The historic rally venue and its surrounding areas looked like an ocean of people with some riding on camels and horses and others dancing to the sound of drumbeat.
Kumar said on this day the police had lathicharged Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan while he was leading a protest to gherao the Bihar Assembly, which had “shaken the chair of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi”
“Today’s Adhikar rally is a strong message to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to stop discrimination against Bihar,” Kumar said in his over 40-minutes speech. (PTI)
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