Nitish hits out at UPA as Cong, Lalu get closer

With the Congress showing an inclination to forge an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal for the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, the RJD chief’s arch-rival, on Monday hit out at the UPA-2 government over the grant of special status to his state.
Addressing a conference on “Bihar Kal, Aaj aur Kal — Governance at the grassroots: A model for India”, he said: “It seemed for a while that the Centre was serious (about the special status). It took some initiatives. It now seems to have developed cold feet. The issue is in cold storage. Elections are coming. It will be a big issue for us.”
Turning philosophical, he said: “Waqt-waqt ki baat hai (It all depends on the times). Times change. The wheel of time rotates all the while. It favours somebody at one time, it favours somebody else at another time.”
Sounding indifferent to a possible Congress-RJD tieup, the Bihar CM said his party had never held talks with the Congress for an alliance. “This (tieup with the RJD) is their decision... There was never any talks between us. Bihar wants a special status and it is our right. We will get it.”
Hitting out indirectly at Mr Lalu Yadav, he said some people were behaving like they were put behind bars for having taken part in the country’s freedom struggle. After he parted ways with the BJP earlier this year, for a while Nitish Kumar had appeared to have courted the Congress, and vice versa, but now it seems the Congress might prefer to ally with the RJD than the JD(U).