Patna: Speaking at a massive rally here, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday 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’.
The state legislative council also passed similar resolutions but it also did not yield any result, 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. The rally was considered as an exercise by Kumar to showcase his mass appeal among people before the 2014 general elections.
Kumar said the state lagged behind the national average in terms of per capita income, development, consumption of electricity, health and road among others. 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.
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” (PTI)