PATNA: JD(U), an ally of BJP, on Saturday once again raised the issue of according special status to Bihar and urged the Centre to deliver justice to the people of the state by fulfilling their long-pending demand.
JD(U) parliamentary board chairperson and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha said the state’s ranking in the SDG India Index report released by Niti Aayog recently is a case in point.
He said the state’s performance was not on par with many other states.
“Nitish Kumar is maintaining the pace of development despite natural calamity faced by the people and a lion’s share of natural resources going to Jharkhand after partition of Bihar,” Kushwaha said.
Reacting to ruling JD(U)’s demand, state Congress media cell in-charge Rajesh Rathore said, “I would like to know from CM Nitish Kumar as to when he is going to give ultimatum to the central government on the special status issue.” Leader of opposition in the state assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav also trained guns at the Nitish-led NDA government and accused it of failing to address the rising problem of unemployment in the state.
Citing media reports, Tejashwi tweeted, “Bihar has become the main centre of unemployment.
Moreover, 78% of them are graduates and postgraduates.
The NDA government has been working on one-point agenda, i.e adding more unemployed in the last 16 years.” Maintaining that the situation has worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the former deputy CM said around 1.35 lakh people were rendered jobless in May alone.
In addition, Bihar recorded 13.8% unemployment rate compared to the national 11.9%, he claimed.
Recalling the promises made by BJP before the state assembly polls to generate 19 lakh jobs, Tejashwi alleged that the issue had been thrown into the dustbin.
The RJD leader also shared a few newspaper clippings on his Twitter handle to substantiate his statement.
JD(U), however, rubbished the allegations.
JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said Tejashwi has virtually no issues to attack the NDA government.
“That’s why he is making baseless and frivolous allegations,” he added.
The JD(U) MLC said the government was serious about generating jobs.
“Not only vacancies in different government departments have been advertised, but the recruitment process has also been started,” he said.