Nitish Kumar defends 'Badh Chala Bihar' campaign

PATNA: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today defended his government's 'Badh Chala Bihar' campaign launched last year and said the 'Bihar@2025 vision document' will guide successive governments in framing policies and programmes for development of the state.

"The Badh Chala Bihar campaign has proved to be a unique experiment as we have come to know about the people's expectation from the government on development front," he said

He was intervening on the IPR&D Minister in-charge Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh's reply in the state assembly to a starred question by the BJP MLA Sanjay Saragwi over the expenditure and related facts about the campaign.

The inputs collected from the people of 40,000 villages with population of 5000 or more were being compiled under the 'Bihar@2025 vision document', the Chief Minister said, adding it will prove to be a guide for the successive governments in formulating policies and programmes specific to the expectation of the masses.

The state government will release the 'Bihar@2025 vision document' and invite the opposition to the function in this regard, he said.

The Chief Minister came down hard on the BJP for making the 'Badh Chala Bihar' campaign, which was launched on June 11 last year, a "political" issue by first petitioning the Election Commission and then challenging it in the Patna High Court to get it shelved.

"As soon as we rolled out the 'Badh Chala Bihar' campaign, the BJP suffered heart-rending grief," he said castigating the opposition party for leaving no stone unturned to get the campaign shelved.