After much controversy, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has finally received an invitation to the foundation-laying ceremony of an Aligarh Muslim University centre by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at Kisanganj tomorrow, but is yet to decide whether to attend it.
Invitation letters from Union Human Resources Development minister M M Pallam Raju and Vice-Chancellor of AMU reached the chief minister and state education minister P K Shahi late last evening, Shahi and Kumar's secretary Atish Chandra told PTI today.
Bihar government had lodged a strong protest with Raju, claiming that it was not invited to the inauguration by Gandhi due to political reasons though the AMU yesterday insisted that it had sent an invitation to the Chief Minister.
AMU Vice Chancellor Zameeruddin Shah had said the "confusion" over invite could have been due to a "mix-up" in CM's office and that he had sent a second invitation to Kumar.
A sulking Kumar had yesterday hit out at the central government saying it had taken the "cowardly" decision as it was afraid that Bihar government would get credit for the AMU centre.
Congress today attacked Kumar for raking controversy over the issue with state party president Ashok Chaudhary saying that AMU centre is a "dream project" of Sonia Gandhi and "the CM in the garb of AMU is trying to derive political advantage" by "hoodwinking" Muslims.
Shahi said a decision on whether to attend the ceremony or not would be taken after talks with Kumar, who was in Banka for JD(U)'s 'Sankalp rally' and would return to Patna in the evening.
The Minister, who had sent a protest letter to the Union HRD minister on Monday, said "we will take a decision whether to attend the ceremony or not after assessing the sincerity of the Centre to the project.
"We will see whether they have made provision of funds for it or is it only a political discourse in view of coming elections before taking a decision," he said.
He said that initially AMU thought of opening the centre at Katihar, but after Kumar suggested Kisanganj it was accepted.
"Till this time the Centre was nowhere in the picture and now the minister is saying it is a long pending project," he said.
He asked Pallam Raju why the Centre did not make a provision for funds or took other steps when the state had had provided 224 acre of land two years ago.
