A day after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wrote a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley alleging discrimination against Bihar in devolution of tax resources, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today charged Kumar with playing "package politics", a reference to the PM's announcement of a 1.25 lakh-crore package for the state.
"Nitish Kumar is simply playing 'package politics' and is not at all interested in the development of Bihar," he told reporters.
Reeling out figures from different official sources to hit at Nitish Kumar for his government's failure to sustain development in the past two years of his tenure, Prasad asked the chief minister to explain the sharp decline in agriculture growth rate in Bihar by 11.5 per cent in 2013-14 against corresponding data in 2012-13 when he was leading the NDA government.
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The state government could extricate itself from declining agriculture growth rate by harping on inadequate fertilisers supply and other reasons, but the fact remained that he jettisoned the BJP in 2013 and as a result there was overall decline in the performance of his government, Prasad said.
He also nailed Kumar for the sharp decline in economic growth rate at 8.82 per cent in 2013-14 as against 15.05 per cent in 2012-13 to drive home his point that the Nitish Kumar government had lost focus on development after severing ties with the BJP.
The Union minister also referred to the sharp decline in private investment proposals in 2013-14 - Rs 6,059 crore down from Rs 17,452 crore in 2012-13 - and slammed Kumar for vitiating a stable political atmosphere which prevailed in Bihar during the NDA rule by walking out of the BJP-led coalition.
This, he alleged, led the investors to turn their attention away from Bihar.
On Kumar's consistent trashing of the special package announced by the Prime Minister last month by describing it as "repackaging of old schemes", Prasad criticised him for running down the PM for his commitment to develop the state.
