Bihar state chief minister Nitish Kumar’s demand for the special status has been brushed aside by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Arun Jaitley disregarded Nitish Kumar’s postulate denouncing it as non-relevant after the constitutional award by the 14th Finance Commission for sharing of tax resources between the Centre and the states.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Ignores Bihar Special Status Demand

Arun Jaitley said “Special status ka daur samapt ho chuka hai (the era of special status in over).  The 14th Finance Commission had come up with the constitutional award for states and fixed a formula for sharing of tax revenues between the Centre and the states.” Addressing the Nitish Kumar’s demand, Arun Jaitley said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already announced Rs 1.25 lakh crore special package for the state in addition to Rs 40,000 crore for completion of the ongoing infrastructure projects. He added, “Over and above that, we want to give more to Bihar.”

Jaitley further denounced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced special development package of Rs 1.65 lakh crore would benefit Bihar a lot in years to come knocking the current state government’s  blackball position for accounting it as a repackaging of old schemes. Union Minister alleged that if the  why didn’t the Bihar state government asked the Congress addressing the incomplete and unimplemented projects when then announced special package was repackaging.

NDA Would Get Clear Mandate and Majority in All Five Phases of Bihar Elections

Arun Jaitley said, “Then congress government was in power when those projects were conceived for Bihar, but not implemented. Now that the same party was part of the grand alliance, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar should question it about non-implementation of those projects.” Highly acclaimed for his ground and backdrop work to lead his BJP party and NDA to grand victory in the past two Assembly polls in Bihar, Arun Jaitley affirmed that their party is steering towards a landslide victory this time.

Asserting his past experience Jaitley averred that he could envision a massive support and majority mandate for NDA during all the three phases of elections accommodated so far and backed up a few relative reasons. Arun Jaitley said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and the trust of people of Bihar in his leadership had swung the mood in the BJP-led coalition’s favour at the hustings. The people here wanted a government which could work in harmony with the Centre and capitalize all opportunities for development of Bihar post-announcement of Rs 1.65 lakh crore package for the state by the Prime Minister two months ago.”