Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has contended that he will not settle for anything less than special status to the State and declared that the demand for special category will definitely become a “political issue” in the 2014 lok Sabha elections if the UPA Government does not concede the State’s demand by that time.
Talking to mediapersons after his weekly Janata Darbar on Monday, Kumar said that Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has made an announcement about constituting a sub-committee for revisiting parameters fixed for declaring a State backward and the State Government cannot do much at the present stage but wait for the Centre’s next move.
Chidambaram had said that a sub-committee under the leadership of Chief Economic Adviser Raghuram G Rajan would be constituted in a few days. After reviewing parameters fixed for declaring a State backward, the committee will submit its report in a month.
Stating that the demand for special status to Bihar has reached a “decisive” stage, the Chief Minister said that one should not rush to draw a line of distinction between backwardness and special status as these terms are not contrary to each other.
Once Bihar is declared a backward State, the Union Government has to take steps to take out the State from the ghetto of backwardness by according special status to it.
In addition to the special status, Bihar will require more devolution of funds from the Centre and also more compensation to the State in accordance with provisions made in the Bihar Reorganisatiion Act 2000 for its speedy growth.
“If Bihar is recognised as a backward step, it will be the first step in the direction of achieving the ultimate goal of getting special status,” he remarked.
Once Bihar gets the special status, it will be primarily benefited in two ways — first it will create an investor-friendly atmosphere in the State as investors will get tax concessions on their investments and secondly the share of the State’s funds will be reduced drastically in the Centrally-sponsored schemes.
Reiterating that nobody can deny Bihar its “right to development”, Kumar said, “We are very focused in our demand and there is no scope for making any compromise on the issue of special status to Bihar”.
To a query on the BJP’s demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over graft allegations, Kumar said that the BJP is a separate party and hence has its own way of functioning but restrained himself from making any observation on the issue of PM’s resignation.
On resignations by two Central Ministers Pawan Bansal and Ashwani Kumar on a single day, he said that the UPA Government lost the moral ground as both of them put in their papers very late and the Government lost the moral ground in the process.
The moral impact has only diluted due to late resignation of both Ministers, he noted.
The CM also congratulated Nawaz Sharif for registering an impressive victory in the Pakistan election, describing the transfer of power from one civilian Government to another as a victory of democracy.
The CM who had visited Pakistan a few months backs also cheered Imran Khan for his party’s performance.