Patna, Mar 20: The campaign for special status for Bihar has entered an "interesting" phase and the Centre will have to consider the demand now or in future following the successful rally at Delhi, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said yesterday.
Kumar told the assembly that he would, however, not like to take credit for the campaign and he had always said the special status would boost development in the state for the benefit of over 10 crore people.
On Leader of the Opposition Abdul Bari Siddique's quip that the chief minister had kept even trusted ally BJP out of the special status campaign, Kumar said he chose to keep the issue an affair of his party alone as it could have led to lack of coordination.
"When you have 10 parties working together, there could be lack of coordination," Kumar said.
He said he did not want to make the special status issue a 'symbolic' affair but wanted to pursue it in an effective manner.
Attacking RJD for claiming its share of credit for the special status demand, Kumar said the main opposition party had never raised the demand but sought a special package for Bihar post-bifurcation.
"The RJD leadership has been displaying contradictory charactor by not pushing for special status demand when it had the opportunity to do so and not being generous in giving credit to us when we intend to pursue the matter to logical end," he said.
Kumar said "it is a peculiar conduct of the opposition party as it neither does anything on its own for betterment of Bihar and its people not lets others do it."
RJD did not raise the special status demand post-bifurcation of Bihar and only wanted a special package of Rs 1.79 lakh crore to compensate it for financial losses arising out of division of the state, he said and vouched for authenticity of RJD's stand saying he was aware of all details being a minister in the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Kumar said he had personally organized a campaign for MPs from Bihar and collected their signatures on a memorandum submitted to Vajpayee for consideration of the special package demand by the then RJD government in Bihar.
He said he had all the documents with him to prove the consistent stand of RJD for special package and not for special status.
The chief minister said the special status demand had come up for the first time in 2006 after the state legislature passed a resolution and since then his party JD(U) had launched a campaign and collected over 1.25 crore signatures and he had led an all-party delegation to submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year.
Earlier, interjecting in a discussion on Rs 1499.14 crore third supplementary demand tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, the Leader of the Opposition charged the chief minister with adopting a different yardstick on the special status issue.
Kumar had adopted a different stand on then RJD government's demand for special status while he was a minister at the Centre, but has been pursuing the same since becoming the chief minister in late 2005, Siddique said.
Stating that that he was not opposed to belated demand for special status for Bihar, the opposition leader asked the chief minister to rise above petty politics to take all parties on board, including ally BJP, a remark that invited the wrath of the chief minister and the treasury benches.
Later the house passed the third supplementary demand by a voice vote.
