Patna,(BiharTimes): Though the campaign for the special category status for Bihar hardly yielded any electoral benefit in the last Lok Sabha poll the ruling Janata Dal (United) on Thursday once again resolved to make it an election issue for the next year Assembly polls.
After the meeting of its office-bearers at the residence of former chief minister Nitish Kumar the party decided to hold dharna at all the district headquarters on October 20 to pressurise the Centre to grant special status to Bihar.
Talking to the newsmen the state unit president of the party Bashistha Narayan Singh said that the JD(U) would launch a series of campaigns in the run up to the Assembly polls. He said his party would expose the discrimination against the state by the Narendra Modi government. 
Singh said that during the Lok Sabha election campaign Narendra Modi had promised to pay off debt to the people of Bihar on being elected to power, but he seemed to have forgotten everything. Instead his government significantly cut funds meant for development and welfare of Bihar.
The state JD(U) chief said that the Modi government had been acting against the spirit of the Constitution though the Centre is supposed to take care of the interests of all states. In terms of reduction of grants under the MGNREGA, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Indira Awas Yojana and other central programmes Bihar has suffered the most and that too for no valid reason.
On this occasion he announced that Nitish Kumar would also set out on a tour of the the state. The dates of this latest Sankalp Yatra would be decided later.
Singh said BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, as the deputy chief minister of Bihar, had himself favoured grant of special status to Bihar. BJP was part of the resolution adopted by the two Houses of the state legislature to press for special status demand.
Earlier, Nitish Kumar, while speaking on the occasion, urged officer-bearers to publicise the state government’s performance and propagate the ruling party’s ideology and agenda among the people