JD(U) should openly announce alliance with Congress: Sushil Modi

BJP`s Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday ridiculed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for celebrating Raghuram Rajan panel report despite the fact that it crushed Bihar`s aspiration for special status.

Zee Media Bureau

Patna: Head of Bihar BJP and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday ridiculed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for celebrating Raghuram Rajan panel report despite the fact that it crushed Bihar`s aspiration for special status. Calling it a veiled attempt by the Bihar CM to ally with the Congress in future, Modi tweeted, “JDU members in JPC abstained from the meeting helping Congress. Why this mask of Raghu committee report for alliance with Congress (sic).” “JDU should openly announce to align with Congress? Nkumar not comfortable with Namo but can chant Rahul zindabad? (sic)” he posted on the microblogging site. Talking to reporters on the issue, he said, "I wonder as to why the Chief Minister and his party - the JD(U) - burst firecrackers and celebrated the Raghuram Rajan panel report which has crushed Bihar`s aspiration for special status by rejecting the very concept of Special Category States (SCS)." Even Shaibal Gupta, who was made a member of the Raghuram Rajan panel at the behest of the Chief Minister, has registered a 10-page note of dissent to protest undermining of Bihar`s case for grant of special status by framing new criteria to assess backwardness of the states, Modi said. Bihar also stood to gain less than other states in devolution of additional financial assistance from the centre based on the recommendations of the Raghuram Rajan panel report which has not given weightage to per capita income in laying down new criteria of backwardness, he said. "In the backdrop of the panel`s classification of states in three new categories with Bihar listed in second position from below in the list of ten least developed states and the panel recommending additional assistance to such states for development instead of grant of special status, the Chief Minister owed an explanation to the people as to how he proposed to carry forward his pet political agenda when the road ahead has been firmly shut", he said. "What happens to your stated position that you will not settle for anything less that grant of special category status?" Modi asked the Chief Minister. On the Chief Minister welcoming the Raghuram Rajan panel report on the ground that Bihar`s hope for special status remained alive, the senior BJP leader said that the former has done so to make an excuse for a future electoral tie up with the Congress. Stating that the BJP favoured grant of special status to Bihar in view of development deficit, Modi asked the Centre to reject the Raghuram Rajan panel report and set up another committee to frame afresh new criteria for identification of backwardness of the states. He also hit out at the JD(U) for hobnobbing with the Congress at the national level and alleged that two JD(U) MPs - Sharad Yadav and RCP Sinha - abstained from the JPC meeting held today to work out final report on the 2G scam apparently to save the UPA government. On the Supreme Court`s landmark order to grant the people a right to reject candidates during elections, he said that his party welcomed the move as it will help weed out criminal elements from the polity. The right to reject decision should be implemented at the earliest to enable the voters to exercise their right to reject a candidate in the elections if they wished, he said. On the Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi slamming the ordinance issued by the UPA government seeking to negate the Supreme Court order on the convicted lawmakers, the senior BJP leader took the Congress Vice President to task for belated reaction on the issue. Charging Rahul with displaying a `double face`, Modi asked to what the former (Rahul) was doing when his own government discussed and finalized the ordinance to save the seats of convicted lawmakers. Rahul should sack the Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal and other UPA ministers who were involved in the finalization of the controversial ordinance. (With agency inputs)