Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has reiterated the State’s long-standing demand to be granted the special category status by the Centre, a move that would increase the amount of tax revenues that the State gets from the Centre.
The demand for special category status right now is significant because Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government depends on the crucial support from TDP and JDU for its survival. With the General Elections throwing up a fractured mandate, it will be difficult for the center to ignore concerns of AP and Bihar.
As a result, their past demands for special category status for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, respectively, are back in focus. The TDP won 16 seats, and the JDU 12. They are both part of the BJP-led NDA. Notably, the Bihar Cabinet had passed a resolution late last year demanding special category status to the State.
As Bihar is going to assembly polls early next year, special category status is likely to be a contentious issue there. Soon after the General Election results started coming in on June 4, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said his party would guarantee special status to Andhra Pradesh, as was promised by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, if it came to power.
However, the Narendra Modi government has been arguing that special category status was a closed chapter as the Fourteenth Finance Commission removed the concept of special category status from states. However, experts point out that the definition of a special category status may not have to be changed as there is no Planning Commission that used to decide on the Plan expenditure. As a result, it is now turning into a political issue.
The demand by Bihar and Andhra Pradesh for special category status is not new, and has been raised as far back as 2005 by Nitish Kumar when he was first sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar, which has been a backward and poor state. He reiterated this demand last year in November when he released the caste census.
Naidu too has been campaigning for special category status after the AP Reorganization Act promised for it. On this issue only he had left from the NDA in 2018. A recent demand by Odisha for a similar dispensation was not taken up by the Centre.
As a strategy as of now Chandrababu Naidu is not raising the issue of special category status and mainly focusing on getting liberal financial assistance from the center. However, when Bihar is insisting on it. But the Center may not ignore AP claims also.
