In view of the Telangana Bill passed when the leaders from Bihar across party lines were raising voice inside Parliament to demand special status for the State, the echo was also reverberated in Bihar with both the ruling JD(U) and BJP leaders announced separate plan to protest against the Centre’s failure to meet their sustained demand for long.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appealed to all political parties and people from all walks of life to strike work on March 2 to protest against the Congress-led UPA Government’s “betrayal” with Bihar and press for similar status to the State.
The Bihar Chief Minister further said that they have no problem with Seemandhra getting special category status but the same has been denied to Bihar despite a favourable recommendation of the Raghuram Rajan Committee. “The Congress president Sonia Gandhi granted the special category status to Seemandhra and it was promised by the Prime Minister overnight. But, a similar legitimate demand of Bihar is lying in cold storage for long,” said an agitated Kumar while alleging that the Congress party has been playing politics over special category status issue to Bihar.
“So I appeal to everyone in the State and all political parties to make Bihar bandh successful on March 2 to show the Centre how important special status is for us in Bihar,” the CM said. Similarly, former Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Shushil Kumar Modi too said that his party has given a call for “rail roko” programme on February 28 to protest the Centre’s discriminatory approach towards the State. The BJP leader also said that he would invite the Bihar CM to lead all the political parties to Delhi where they would sit on dharna at Jantar Mantar to press for their demand.
“We’ve decided to protest the Centre’s discrimination by stopping trains across Bihar on February 28 to express our anger over their ignorance to our demand,” said Shushil Modi while adding that he would also like to invite Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to lead all political parties to Delhi where they sit on dharna to mount pressure on the Centre. But, at the same time, he also charged the Bihar Chief Minister for weakening the fight for the State’s special category status from the Centre by hijacking the issue and making it his party JD(U)’s political weapon.
Modi also rued that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced the Bihar bandh call on March 2 without taking his party into confidence or having any consultation with other political parties.