Nitish Kumar not bothered at Congress withdrawing support

Amid growing acrimony with Congress, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said if the party wanted it could withdraw support to his government but he will not make compromise with the principles.

Patna: Amid growing acrimony with Congress, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said if the party wanted it could withdraw support to his government but he will not make compromise with the principles.

"If they want they can withdraw support to my government ...I will never make compromise with principles," Kumar told reporters at the airport here after returning from Kishanganj.

Making light of the warning by the state Congress over his adverse comments against the party and its Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Kumar said "If they want I can call a special Assembly session to help the Congress, RJD and BJP topple my government.

"Whether my government stays or goes, I will never make a compromise with principles," he said.

After the split with NDA, four MLAs of Congress had voted for his government in a confidence vote on June 19 last year to bail out his government.

Hitting out at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi who said that Rs 134 lakh was provided to the state in the last 10 years for development, he said "talk of development has no meaning without grant of special category status to Bihar."
Kumar said that the state was getting its legitimate dues by way of Central funds on the basis of the Gadgil-Mukherjee formula and "nothing extra was being given."

He said there was clear provision of allocation of additional funds to the state in the Bihar Reorganisation Act which guided the bifurcation of Jharkhand from it in 2000 and nothing additional was provided.

Kumar, who agreed to attend the foundation-laying ceremony for a new Aligarh Muslim University campus at Kishanganj, said "had they involved us we could have organised the occasion in a better way."

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