Will become Modi supporter if he grants special status to Bihar: Manjhi

He said there needs to be concrete steps to solve Bihar's problems on the ground

Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Saturday said he was ready to become a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he granted special category status to the state and fulfilled other long-pending demands.

"If you fulfil your commitment to provide special category status to Bihar and other long-pending demands such as reimbursing Rs 1,000 crore spent by the state from its limited resources to repair national highways, I will become your supporter," Manjhi said in his speech during the inauguration of the fourth unit of NTPC Barh Super Thermal Power Plant.

Addressing a public function after the commercial launch of the unit, he took potshots at the NDA government at the Centre saying "Going by loud assertions of its ministers, it seems all the problems of Bihar have been solved." "In place of high decibel claims the state needs concrete steps to solve Bihar's problems on the ground," he said.

He referred to the seven ministers of the union government hailing from Bihar as "sat bhaiya' (seven brothers) and urged them to ensure that the dues of the state were fullfilled.

Protesting against the ignoring of his predecessor and senior JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar by the organisers of the function, he said "There should not have been politics in it." Earlier, Manjhi accompanied Union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal to Muzaffarpur to inaugurate the commercial operation of 110 MW unit II of Muzaffarpur Thermal power station (Stage I).