Patna: The central government on Monday refused to grant special state status to Bihar during the budget session of Parliament, to which the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) reacted. RJD wrote on the social media platform X, “Bihar will not get special state status!” – Modi government in Parliament. Nitish Kumar and JDU should now comfortably enjoy power at the Centre and keep doing hypocritical politics on ‘special state status’!”
In Rajya Sabha, RJD MP Manoj Jha made a big announcement and said that we will take special state status as well as special package. He said that for this we will fight from Parliament to the streets. Bihar needs to be looked at with sensitivity. The central government has ruled out the possibility of granting special state status to Bihar, citing the existing provisions in the Lok Sabha. The government said that it is not possible to grant special state status to Bihar under the existing provisions.
The government told the Lok Sabha that some states were previously given special category status by the National Development Council (NDC), which had several characteristics that required special attention. These characteristics included hilly and difficult terrain, low population density or large proportion of tribal population, strategic location on the borders with neighboring countries, economic and infrastructural backwardness and non-viable nature of state finances. This decision was taken on the basis of integrated consideration of all the factors listed above and the specific situation of the state. Earlier, Bihar’s request for special category status was considered by an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG), which submitted its report on March 30, 2012. The IMG concluded that a case for special status for Bihar was not made out based on the existing NDC criteria.
