Monday saw an angry exchange of words between members of the BJP and the JDU in Bihar who are ruling the state in an alliance. The BJP launched a veiled attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s governance, to which the JDU retorted with a direct attack on the Prime Minister.
It all started after BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal took pot-shots at Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan, JDU’s national president, for his demand for special status for Bihar from the Central government.
On Monday, Jaiswal, who is the BJP MP from West Champaran, wrote a lengthy Facebook post in which he attached a screenshot of a question raised by Singh in the Lok Sabha on 2 February seeking response to a question as to whether the Union government was planning to provide special status to Bihar on the lines other states.
The screenshot shared by Jaiswal also contained the categorical reply by Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh that there was no plan to grant special status to Bihar or any other state.
Jaiswal wrote that Bihar was already
getting more Central help than states like Maharashtra and West Bengal, which had similar population as Bihar’s, while stating that the situation in Bihar was due to sub-optimal resource utilisation, hostile attitude towards entrepreneurship and reluctance to pursue an aggressive policy of population control, among other issues.
Jaiswal, while bringing in the “Gujarat model” of development into the issue, gave multiple examples of how Gujarat has developed while Bihar has lagged behind, even as he hinted that Bihar industries minister and his party colleague, Shahnawaz Hussain was “putting efforts”, but was not getting required support from his Cabinet colleagues.
“Wherever possible, private-public partnership should be executed, this mindset of treating industrialists as villains will damage Bihar. For the last 6 years we have not been able to use the fund allocated by the Prime Minister and still Rs 10000 crore is unspent,” he said while citing the example of a proposed airport in his own Lok Sabha constituency that has still not been completed.
Jaiswal also launched an indirect attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and criticized his population control measures. “If we keep thinking that things will come under control with the spread of education, it will be too late before the population stabilises” and took another dig at Kumar while stating “public funds must not be splurged on hotels and bus stops. These can be built better under the PPP model. Government money should be used for welfare of the poor, not to keep its departments happy.”
Jaiswal also talked of the grounds on which the BJP-JDU alliance was formed and asked the JDU to keep that in mind rather than digress from it. Post his speech in Parliament, Lalan Singh had tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter while seeking special status demand of the state.
Not to be outdone, the JDU, through its spokesperson, Nikhil Mandal launched a scathing attack on Jaiswal, while calling him a person with a “forgetful trait” and reminded him that to manage Bihar efficiently was the responsibility of the BJP too.
“Multiple states have accepted the effectiveness of Nitish model and whatever the Centre is giving is Bihar’s right, not a ‘khairat’ (alms). By questioning the lack of industrialization in the state you (Jaiswal) are also questioning the capabilities of the industries minister and the finance minister of Bihar. You are questioning the building of hotels even as the Prime Minister is building a new Parliament building. If you continue using social media to raise such issues it will be deemed that you have taken the contract to weaken the NDA government in Bihar,” Mandal said.
