In a clear defiance of BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal repeated warning to Janata Dal United leadership not to tag Prime minister Narendra Modi on every issue, JDU national president Lallan Singh on Sunday reiterated the demand of special status for Bihar through a twitter campaign directed towards the prime minister.
Curiously, the latest push to the demand came after a day JDU announced 25 candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh election as Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s party decided to go solo.
JDU has been demanding the special status to keep Its ally BJP on tenterhooks. Lately, this ploy has been repeatedly used by JDU whenever Bihar’s dismal show on the various developmental fronts come to the fore, as in the wake of recent Niti Ayog reports.
Till now, BJP has maintained that Bihar does not qualify for special status and the special packages announced by the PM Narendra Modi is sufficient for the upliftment of the state. Responding to the demand made by JDU last month, Sanjay Jaiswal had stressed that Bihar should focus on generating internal resources.
However, Sanjay Jaiswal on Sunday gave a tone down response as he said that the more Bihar gets from the Centre is better, Lallan Singh should talk to the chief ministers of Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh as they are also demanding the special status, adding that he and other BJP leaders will join the JDU president in this, if he wishes so.
Lallan Singh, on the other hand, tried to downplay the remarks of Sanjay Jaiswal as he said that his demand for special status is not from any party but it is from the Prime Minister of the country.
This round of spat came close on the heels of recent fissure between the two NDA allies over comparison of King Ashok with Mughal emperor Aurangzeb by recipient of Padma Shri and Academy Award Daya Prakash Sinha who has been associated with the BJP.
Taking strong exception of JDU leaders strong posturing against BJP, Sanjay Jaiswal through a Facebook post had reacted strongly: “To keep the NDA strong, we all will need to follow the basic decorum. It cannot be one sided. The first step in that direction is to stop playing Twitter-Twitter with PM, as he is the pride of every BJP leader and worker. If anything has to be said to him, the talks should be direct. If one plays Twitter-Twitter, the 76 lakh BJP workers know how to answer. I hope we all will take note of this.”
