Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi today 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 fulfill your commitment to provide special category status to Bihar and other long pending demands like reimbursing Rs 1,000 crore spent by the state from its limited resources to repair national highways, I will become your supporter," said Mr Manjhi.
Addressing a public function after the commercial launch of the unit, he took potshots at the National Democratic Alliance or 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 fulfilled.
Protesting against Neglecting his predecessor and senior Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar by the organisers of the function, he said "There should not have been politics in it."
Earlier, Mr 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).