Chief minister Nitish Kumar at the news meet at his official residence in Patna on Monday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, April 18: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today said he would not settle on anything less than special category status for Bihar, which he described as “more a subject to the Centre’s intention than Planning Commission’s norms”.

“It is the intention of the Centre which, actually, is in the way of according special status to our state,” the chief minister acerbically said, adding that it is well within the power of the Centre to amend the criteria for giving Bihar its long-pending due.

Nitish alleged that the Centre had stopped paying special assistance to Bihar, which it had been receiving in lieu of the separation of Jharkhand from it. “The Centre simply does not want to accord special status to the state. But I will not be silent till I get the special category status for the state,” he said on the sidelines of his weekly janata darbar.

Referring to the criteria for according special category status, Nitish reeled off his own logic: “Twenty-eight out of the state’s 38 districts were flood-prone. The population and its density have immensely grown, putting enormous pressure on the state’s resources.”

The chief minister also pointed out that the state had largely failed to benefit from the growing market and the economy that is gaining ground in other parts of the country and the world at large. “The special status will ensure tax holidays, encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in the state and help it pick up with the market economy,” Nitish said, adding that its economy is still based on agriculture and it continues to be a backward state.

A leader endowed with fair amount of “guile”, the chief minister hinted that he would make it a major issue during the coming polls to further enervate the Congress in the state. “The people will no longer pardon the dispensation which is playing against their genuine cause. The more they (Congress) delay according the special status, the more they will accumulate people’s fury. Bihar has been a neglected state for long. The people cannot take it lying down,” he said.

In fact, by keeping the pitch consistently high on the special category status demand, Nitish has, apparently, managed to silence his staunch political rivals in the state.

A section of the RJD, his main rival, in private conversations feel that it is hard for the Centre to accord the status demand to Bihar.

They say that the state is not fulfiling the norms under the Gadgil formula that the Planning Commission adopts to accord special category status. Moreover, accepting Nitish’s demand may amount to opening the Pandora’s Box, with other states clamouring for the same facility, they feel.

But the party, apparently, wary of earning the sobriquet of “anti-Bihari”, has supported the CM’s demand and has gone to the extent of agreeing to join him in leading the delegation to the Prime Minister for the cause.