Don’t read meaning into PM praise: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has played down talk that he may be cosying up to Congress, which has of late spared no effort to win him over in the hope of dealing a body blow to the BJP-led NDA.

Recent weeks have seen lavish praise for Bihar from some of the senior Congress functionaries along with greater indulgence of the state by the Centre. Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh praised Bihar as the fastest growing state in the country, ahead of even Gujarat, which is headed by Narendra Modi, with whom Kumar shares an uneasy relationship.

But, on Sunday, the Bihar chief minister said the prime minister’s utterances were only a statement of fact. “What the prime minister tweeted the other day to acknowledge the growth story of Bihar, I really felt happy about it. The prime minister also spoke about Bihar in Parliament, but no political meaning should be read into it. What the prime minister spoke was only a statement of fact, although you all are making your own interpretations,” Kumar said.

The Centre has replaced Bihar’s governor, whose transfer had been sought by Kumar. In his budget speech, finance minister P Chidambaram promised to review the criteria for conferring backward status to states.

Recently, Kumar offered guarded praise for the budget in an exclusive piece to ET. All this fanned talks of a possible realignment.