Will Give More Than 5,000 Crore, But Not Today, PM Modi Tells Bihar

Here are the latest developments:

1. “I had promised that Bihar will get special status… I had also promised 50,000 crore package to Bihar,” PM Modi said. “But I now realise that 50,000 crore is not enough. I will not announce it today. I will not only fulfill my promise but go beyond them.”


2. “After 14th Finance Commission, Bihar will get Rs 3.75 lakh crore,” he said, pointing out that earlier, the state had just got Rs 1.5 lakh crore.


3. As PM Modi landed in Patna this morning to power up his party’s campaign, his BJP’s chief rival, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, threw him a challenge in comments loaded with sarcasm.


4. “We’re grateful that after 14 months Modiji finds time to visit Bihar. As we get ready to hear more promises what about his old ones? You promised Bihar special status, the people are still waiting,” Nitish Kumar said.


5. The two leaders had shared stage and made polite references to each other at a function to launch multiple projects and two trains. “I share Nitish Kumar’s pain, Bihar suffered because of politics,” said PM Modi, referring to the previous Congress-led government at the Centre.


6. There has been much speculation that PM Modi could, at a mega rally today in north Bihar’s Muzzafarnagar, announce a special economic package, which has been Mr Kumar’s most passionate demand. PM Modi had promised a special package for Bihar ahead of the national election last year.


7. An announcement by the PM today would help the BJP neatly pluck the credit from the man it hopes to unseat this year, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal United. The BJP and allies had won 32 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats.


8. In Bihar, the BJP takes on the combined might of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United and Lalu Yadav’s RJD in what is billed as the most crucial election since last year’s Lok Sabha polls. The Congress and its allies have also joined hands with Nitish and Lalu.


9. The anti-BJP coalition is projecting Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial candidate. The BJP has not announced one – the face of its campaign is PM Modi in a tested strategy that has paid dividend in other state elections.   


10. The Aam Aadmi Party, which rules in Delhi, today declared that it too was heading for Bihar to campaign against the BJP and PM Modi. Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP accuses the Modi government at the Centre of attempting to scuttle governance in Delhi.