Miffed: Modi

Patna, Aug. 7: The Rs 21,614-crore special financial package to neighbouring Bengal has not gone down well with Bihar’s deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, struggling to get a similar package for the state for the past six years.

The Bihar government did not object to the Centre’s package to Bengal but it turned the heat on the Manmohan Singh government for meting out a “step-motherly” treatment to the state.

“We have no objection if the Centre doles out special package to any other state. But it has been deliberately ignoring Bihar’s long-pending demand for the special category status and special package,” the deputy chief minister said.

Explaining the break-up of the special package to Bengal, Modi, also the finance minister of Bihar, said: “The special package announced for Bengal includes Rs 9,240 crore as grant and the Trinamul Congress-led government has got special permission to raise a loan of Rs 2,706 crore from the market. Besides, the Bengal government will get Rs 3,068 crore more as the Centre has increased its share in the overall plan size from 30 per cent to 41.45 per cent.”

Modi demanded a clarification from the Centre on the basis for granting the special package to Bengal, which recently got the Trinamul-Congress alliance in the saddle, and also the reason behind ignoring Bihar’s six-year-old demand for the special category status and special packages.

“We simply request the Centre to give up its unjust conduct and insensitivity towards Bihar and give special category status and desired special packages to the state,” he said.

In a way, Modi wanted to send the message that the Centre had given the largesse to a state (Bengal) because it had a “favourable” government while ignoring the one, which had a non-Congress government. The deputy chief minister pointed out that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had visited the flood-devastated areas of Kosi in 2008, had declared the unprecedented loss of lives and property as “national calamity”.

“But the Centre never responded to the state’s demand for special package of over Rs 8,500 crore for rebuilding and rehabilitation of the devastated region,” he said.

Modi added that the Centre had also turned a blind eye to the demand of special package to deal with the two spells of drought in 2009 and 2010 despite sending central teams to get the situation assessed.

“Imagining India’s development without developing Bihar is a farce,” the deputy chief minister said.

Modi’s words strongly indicated that the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government would step up its campaign against the Centre for the special category status and special packages after the “ latter doled out the money pouch to Bengal.

The Manmohan Singh government is believed to have constituted a cabinet sub-committee to study the demand for the special category status to Bihar. “But nothing will satisfy us until we get our legitimate demand fulfilled,” Modi said.