Two reasons why Nitish Kumar is looking foolish in front of Modi
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, along with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad, will hold 'Swabhiman' rally in Patna on August 30 to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'DNA' and 'Bimaru' remarks. However, on both the counts, Nitish is on the wrong.
First, let us take up Modi's 'Bimaru' comment made in BJP's 'Parivartan' rally at Gaya on August 9. The PM hailed the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for extricating the two states from 'Bimaru' (comprising Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP) tag and promised to rid Bihar too from it in five years if the party came to power in the upcoming Assembly elections.
The very next day, Nitish hit back at Modi and asked him to check his facts. He claimed that Bihar's growth rate, performance on social indices like education and health care presented a picture which did not show it was a backward state.
However, in his attempt to prove Modi wrong, Nitish contradicted himself because just a week ago, on August 3, the Bihar CM had attacked the PM for denying grant of special category status to the state. He said he would play the audio recording of the PM in which the latter had promised special status, special package and special attention to the state before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Nitish has been pleading with the Centre for special category status and special package to Bihar for long. A special category status would have enabled him to get a host of benefits, including extended tax breaks. Such a status is accorded to a state on the basis of five conditions - hilly and difficult terrain, low population density and sizeable share of tribal population, strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries, economic and infrastructure backwardness and non-viable state finances. So far, 11 states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand - which have remote or hilly areas, have been accorded this status.
On the Bihar CM's persistent demand and to wean away Janata Dal (United) from the BJP, the Congress-led UPA government sanctioned a Rs 12,000-crore package under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) in April 2013. Subsequently, Nitish even met Modi in the capital on March 26 and sought special category status and enhanced central assistance to his state.
The question is: Why has Nitish been demanding benefits under Backward Regions Grant Fund if Bihar, as per his claim, is no more backward? MP and Rajasthan have not sought special attention from the Centre on this count. Was the PM wrong? The answer is 'no'. But by raising the issue, the Bihar CM is contradicting himself. On one hand, he says the PM is wrong in calling Bihar as a 'Bimaru' state, on the other, he himself has been persistently demanding special status and special package for the state under the BRGF scheme.
On the 'DNA' issue, while launching the 'Parivartan' rally in Muzaffarpur on July 25, Modi said there was something wrong with Kumar's "political DNA" which led the Bihar CM to dump friends who worked with him. "I was hurt when he withdrew his support. But when he did the same thing to a Mahadalit such as Jitan Manjhi, then I figured out there is something wrong in his political DNA," Modi said, referring to the JD(U)'s breaking away from the BJP in 2013.
While talking of "political DNA", PM attacked the JD(U) leader on a personal and individual level. But Nitish has tried to generalise it by relating it to all Biharis. By doing so, he has tried to copy Modi and link the attack on him with the general 'Bihari pride'. Whenever he was attacked by the opponents - like Congress president's famous 'Maut ka Saudagar' remark - Modi, as the Gujarat CM then, would associate it with Gujarati "asmita" (pride) and six crore Gujaratis. Nitish is clearly trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. While Modi's style worked, it remains to be seen whether it helps Nitish also.
The Bihar CM has now launched "shabd vaapasi" (take back your words) drive to exert pressure on Modi and derive political mileage out of the issue. As part of the drive, over 50 lakh people would send their hair and nail clips to the PM as DNA samples. He can be accused of indulging in rhetorics and picking on the PM because he does not have much to brag about his achievements ever since the JD(U) broke away from the NDA on June 16, 2013 in protest against Modi's elevation as chairperson of the BJP's election campaign committee.
Nitish is on the receiving end of the BJP for aligning with Lalu, who is infamous as a fodder scam convict and also the 15-year rule of his RJD is held responsible for one of the worst law and order situations Bihar has ever witnessed. Nitish's picking on Modi on issues like 'DNA' and 'Bimaru' reeks of a ploy to deflect attention of the people from his association with Lalu and flip flop over Manjhi.