Churn in Nitish-BJP ties in Bihar
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New Delhi: Nitish Kumar, Bihar Chief Minister who did a dramatic U-turn and quit the grand alliance with Lalu Prasad's RJD and the Congress to realign with the BJP, has hinted to friction in the ties between JD(U) and the saffron party.
The JD(U) leader revived the demand for special status for his state and the party leaders said they would launch a protest for the purpose.
In a note, on Twitter addressed to the 15th Finance Commission, Nitish said, "Any rational economic strategy should foster both investment and devolution patterns which would enable these (backward) states to reach the national average within a stipulated time frame. Our demand for special category status for Bihar emanates from this very premise. We have repeatedly raised the demand to the central government to accord special category status to Bihar...”
The tweet came days after RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav accused the chief minister of forgetting the issue of special status after rejoining the NDA.
The BJP did not react to Nitish's tweet. But party insiders claimed that Nitish was trying to place his party into a strong bargaining position before seat-share talks of the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP plans to contest a lion's share of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Senior JD(U) leader, KC Tyagi hinted that all was not well between the allies. He said that there are certain points of disagreement and points of frustration within NDA. "We don't accept the role of the fringe elements of the BJP. We feel the killings of Akhlaq (on the suspicion of eating beef) and Pehlu Khan (on the suspicion of transporting cows for slaughter) were barbaric incidents. This shouldn't happen when the Prime Minister says ' sab ka saath, sabka vikas'," he said.
Last week, Nitish had strongly criticised demonetisation of high valued currencies.
"I was a supporter of demonetisation...but how many people benefited from it? Some powerful people shifted their cash from one place to another," he said at a meeting with bank officials in Patna.