While the making and breaking of alliances before the Parliamentary elections in 2014 goes on, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is playing a subtle game. He has made an offer to the Congress that his JD (U) may move to it if the Centre grants special status to his state. He however said it was not a policy decision. He emphasized that his party’s future strategy would depend on whether or not Bihar is granted special status. He brushed aside the question about whether the same concession offered by the Narendra Modi-led NDA would make him support it saying that at present only the Centre could make the offer. Nitish Kumar once again criticized the policies of the Gujarat Chief Minister saying that Modi was not temperamentally democratic. He would not compromise on ideology in a power game. Kumar made it clear that Narendra Modi would be no issue in Bihar.
The enlightened Chief Minister of Bihar reiterated that the issues in his state were development, governance and performance. He did not however deny that he was willing to accept L.K. Advani in preference to Narendra Modi. Nitish Kumar refused to be drawn into a controversy over the Gujarat and Bihar models of development. He said that the humble people of his state did not offer a model. At the same time he argued that the Centre did not ensure inclusive development. One reason was the relative backwardness of states like Bihar. Discrimination prevails. There are two Indias-laggard and affluent. Kumar paid no heed to the fact that according to official statistics, inequality in growth between Bihar and the developed states had of late reduced significantly.