(Top) Nitish Kumar, AK Antony

Patna, March 1: Tension between Nitish Kumar and Kapil Sibal over the location of the Central University of Bihar (CUB) was ratcheted up today with the Bihar chief minister asserting he would write to defence minister A.K. Antony against the unilateral transfer of army land for setting up the education facility at Gaya.

Sibal, in his letter to Nitish last week, had stated that the land, in Panchpur near Gaya, would be transferred to the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry that he heads for the purpose.

Nitish today said if at all the land has to be transferred, the state government should get it. “The land in Gaya was acquired by the state and handed over to the defence during World War II. Now that the defence ministry has no need for the land, it should automatically be reverted to the state,” Nitish said.

The chief minister has already shot off a letter to Sibal expressing strong opposition to the CUB being established at Gaya and not in Motihari — the preferred location of the state government.

Nitish alleged that Sibal wanted to trigger political tensions in the state by trying to shift the university to another location. “The Centre cannot bypass the state and take a unilateral decision transferring land to another Union department on its own,” the chief minister said, and accused Sibal of arrogance and double standards in establishing central universities in different states.

“Central universities in other states have been established in places which have even less infrastructure than Motihari,” Nitish added.

The chief minister took exception to Sibal’s letter which says the state government was facing difficulties in acquiring land. “We are ready to give 1,000 acres of land free of cost,” Nitish said.

The chief minister said Sibal had been changing norms over the location of the CUB for the past two years.

“We had made available three sites in Motihari. A team came and inspected the sites and approved one of them. Since then Sibalji has been playing politics. He first suggested Patna as the site for CUB. Then he said it would come up on land earmarked for IIT. Now he says Gaya will be suitable because of its proximity to Gaya International Airport. Did he consider the distance of the airport while establishing central universities in other states?” Nitish said.

He stressed that once the East West Corridor is ready, Motihari would be a 150-minute drive from Patna airport.