Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday dared the BJP to not only hold fresh Assembly elections in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh simultaneously, but also byelections to the Lok Sabha seats held by NDA members in both the States. Mr. Kumar blamed the Central government for the farmers’ protests in different parts of the country.
“If they [the BJP] have the courage, then hold simultaneous polls in U.P. and Bihar… I don’t have any problem… I’m ready for it tomorrow if they want it. But it should be held along with byelections to all the Lok Sabha seats held by the NDA members in both the States,” said Mr. Kumar.
He was responding to Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who on Sunday had challenged Mr. Kumar in Patna to hold fresh Assembly elections in Bihar “if he [Nitish] has any faith in the development work done by his government”. Mr. Maurya had come to Patna to open the party’s ongoing Modi fest programme.
Farm crisis
Addressing journalists on the sidelines of his weekly Lok Samvad programme, Mr. Kumar said there would be more crisis in the agricultural sector in coming days.
“Farmers are in a bad state today but the Central government is indifferent to them… the government’s failure to enforce MSP [Minimum Support Price] for farm produce has forced the farmers to protest… the country has been facing an agrarian crisis due to the low prices of farm produce,” charged Mr. Kumar.
“Loan waivers are not the only way to solve farmers’ problem, as they have been facing different problems at different places,” he said.
“It is ironical that both production and productivity of the farm sector have increased, but farmers are in distress as they are not getting fair prices for their produce with input costs increasing…this has been the real problem.”
“The Centre should consider announcing production cost plus 50% as MSP in order to resolve the agrarian crisis,” he suggested.
Insurance scheme
Responding to a query on the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the Bihar Chief Minister said insurance companies were benefiting more from the scheme than the farmers. “The scheme is not meant for farmers, but for insurance companies as they stand to get the biggest benefit out of it.” He demanded that the details of compensation paid by the insurance companies to farmers against the premium paid by the Centre and the State be made public.
On presidential poll, Mr. Kumar said the Opposition parties were waiting for the BJP to come out with a consensus candidate and if there was none, then it was the opposition’s duty to put up its own candidate. “The Centre should take the initiative in this regard… for the opposition parties it will not take much time to decide the candidate as they have already met on many occasions on the issue,” he said.
On Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit’s “goon on the street” comment about Army chief General Bipin Rawat, Mr. Kumar said he did not know anything about it.
Amit Shah’s remark
On BJP president Amit Shah describing Mahatma Gandhi as a “ chatur baniya, ” Mr. Kumar said the comment was unfortunate.
“Mahatma Gandhi is Father of the Nation... It is up to them [BJP] to decide what kind of image they want to create about themselves... does it affect Gandhiji,” he asked.
