New Delhi:Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday revived the demand for special status for his state while his party colleagues made it clear they shouldn't be taken for granted, indicating a churn in Janata Dal United-BJP ties ahead of next year's Lok Sabha polls.
The JDU leaders said they would launch a protest and spoke of "disagreements" and "frustration" with the big brother, but rejected any suggestion of quitting the National Democratic Alliance. "We will remain with the NDA. We will not do a Chandrababu Naidu," JDU secretary-general K.C. Tyagi said.
Naidu, the TDP boss and Andhra Pradesh chief minister, has left the alliance, frustrated over the Centre's refusal to grant his state special category status which involves grants and several waivers.
"But our demand should be considered. The BJP had supported this demand in the past and now the Narendra Modi government should fulfil it," Tyagi added.
Earlier in the day, Nitish had set the tone with a two-page note on Twitter addressed to the 15th Finance Commission, arguing why Bihar needed "special and differentiated treatment".
"Any rational economic strategy should foster both investment and devolution patterns which would enable these (backward) states to reach the national average within a stipulated time frame. Our demand for special category status for Bihar emanates from this very premise. We have repeatedly raised the demand to the central government to accord special category status to Bihar...," Nitish said in the note, tagged to finance minister Arun Jaitley and the chairman of the 15th finance commission, N.K. Singh, who was earlier a JDU MP.
"Bihar is a land locked state and categories of 'Land locked and least developed states are internationally eligible for special and differentiated treatment. In this context, the XV FC must locate the resource gaps and support backward states like Bihar in their efforts to catch up with the developed states," Nitish added.
Nitish's tweet comes days after RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav accused the chief minister of forgetting the issue of special status after re-joining the NDA. Tejashwi said Nitish had made special status his "pet political mileage cow".
The BJP did not react to Nitish's tweet. But, off the record, party insiders claimed that the "shrewd" Bihar leader was trying to manoeuvre his party into a strong bargaining position before seat-share talks for the Lok Sabha polls.
"There is no chance of Nitish quitting the NDA. He is only positioning himself ahead of the seat distribution talks for the Lok Sabha elections," a BJP leader said. The BJP plans to contest a lion's share of Bihar's 40 seats.
Tyagi hinted that all was not well between the allies.
"While we have no plans to quit the NDA, there are certain points of disagreement and points of frustration also...," Tyagi said. "We don't accept the role of the fringe elements of the BJP. We feel the killings of Akhlaq (on the suspicion of eating beef) and Pehlu Khan (on the suspicion of transporting cows for slaughter) were barbaric incidents. This shouldn't happen when the Prime Minister says ' sab ka saath sabka vikas'."
Tyagi also said there had been no consultations with allies on key decisions taken by the central government. "We (the JDU) don't support the sale of public sector units like Air India. Our leader Nitish Kumar should be consulted on such issues," he said.
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