Patna : Patna Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will rake up the issue of centre’s denial of special status to the state as one of the top agendas to counter BJP in the upcoming state elections, several party leaders said.
They said this will become a hot topic in the run up to the elections, scheduled for later this year and will be used as an effective means to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA in the state. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has again exposed his double standards and his government’s apathy for Bihar’s development. We will rake this issue during the poll campaign,” JD-U state president Vashsisht Narain Singh said.
Modi remained silent over the demand during his public meeting in Muzaffarpur last month. He ignored Nitish Kumar’s demand and instead promised a special package of more than Rs.50,000 crore to the state for its development. Socio-political analyst Soroor Ahmed said the BJP would find it difficult to counter Nitish Kumar’s demand. “Modi has given another issue in the hands of Nitish Kumar after (Rashtriya Janata Dal chief) Lalu Prasad’s demand to make public the caste-based census,” he said.
The JD-U has reiterated time and again that special category status is a must for the development of a backward state like Bihar. It pointed out that Bihar’s per capita income, investments and electricity consumption are the lowest in the country and it also lags in all human resource indices.
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44 IPS shifted
The Bihar government on Saturday transferred 44 IPS officers ahead of the upcoming assembly polls. “The state government transferred 44 IPS officers including superintendents of police of over a dozen district in view of the Election Commission’s directive,” an official said. Formally, the government said the reshuffle was routine. According to officials, the poll panel has also asked the state government to remove three IAS officers posted as district magistrates.
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