Patna, Feb. 10: Renewing its demand for special category status for Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar today exhorted the party workers and office-bearers to speed up the “signature campaign” under which one crore signatures would be taken from across the state to exert pressure on the Centre to fulfil the state’s genuine demand of getting “special status state”.

Addressing the JD(U)’s state council meeting, Kumar said: “The signature campaign was held up because of Assembly elections but it needs to be speeded up for getting special status state for Bihar. It is the people’s wish (to have the special state status), which should be vigorously pursued. Getting a crore signature is not an uphill task as people will readily sign the moment such a proposal is place before them. The memorandum having one crore signatures would be given to the Centre.”

To give emphasis on the campaign, Kumar suggested that the campaign should be linked with the membership drive to avoid putting unnecessary time and energy.

Stating that no power can stop Bihar from emerging a force to reckon as the state’s people preferred to have a Bihari identity over caste, chief minister said people, who had to choose between Bihari identity and caste identity, have chosen for Bihari identity.

“Now, one final battle is yet to be fought among all the casteist forces and that of those who believe in Bihari identity,” Kumar said.

Elaborating the reasons behind the increase in the numbers of turnout in the elections, he suggested the Election Commission to come out with two separate sets of polling at each polling booth for men and women.

Kumar, who took swipe at Lalu Prasad without mentioning his name, said some of the people were still doing research how it (the massive victory) happened.

“It is clear that whoever works for the development and betterment of the state will get votes instead of indulging in making trivial remarks,” he added.

Nitish, who seemed committed to industrialisation, said development cannot be quantified in terms of numbers of factories existing in the state or gross domestic product, instead the social indicators, particularly health and education would be a key to judge the actual growth.

Lauding the efforts of state JD (U) president Basishtha Narayan Singh’s decision to take plantation along with the membership drive, he said it would mitigate the impact of global warming and help increase forest cover in the state.