Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Wednesday warned the seven BJP Union Ministers from the State that they would not be allowed to enter Bihar if they did not bring assistance from the Centre.
Reacting to this, BJP leaders said Mr. Manjhi made such ‘unconstitutional and loose’ statements just to be in the news.
Mr. Manjhi made the controversial remarks while addressing a function held on ‘World Toilet Day.’
The Chief Minister also appealed to them to put pressure on the Centre for securing special category status to Bihar. Last week, he had said that he would become a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he gave the State special status.
The seven Union ministers from Bihar are Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ram Vials Paswan (all Cabinet Ministers), Rajiv Pratap Rudy (MoS, Independent charge), Upendra Kushwaha, Ram Kripal Yadav and Giriraj Singh (all Ministers of State).
The Chief Minister also said, though in a lighter vein, that after facing much hardship he had become helmsman of the State and might become the Prime Minister also the same way.
r. Manjhi also expressed anguish over the high percentage of open defecation and said the State government had set a target to construct two crore toilets by 2019. Bihar needs to construct 1.67 crore new toilets to meet the target of covering all households by the year 2019.
“Even if the Centre fails to provide us necessary assistance, the State will achieve this target from its own limited resources,” he declared. In Bihar around 51.6 % households have at least one mobile phone whereas only 23% have toilets, the lowest in the country.
Mr. Manjhi said there were over 269 lakh elected representatives in panchayats and urban local bodies in the State and “if they construct even one toilet it would a big step towards achieving our target.”
He also made a similar appeal to the 50 lakh self-help groups in the State.
