Jeddah — He is the most prominent Muslim face in the political landscape of Bihar. A close friend of Bihar's mass leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, he has deep roots in politics. Like most politicians in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, he too is a product of the famous JP movement against the then prime minister Indira Gandhi. The youth leader of the 70s has today mellowed and has grown into a mature politician. Abdul Bari Siddiqui, 66, is today one of the pillars of Nitish Kumar's government in Bihar, because he holds the important Cabinet portfolio of the Finance Ministry. He brings with him the experience of leading nine different ministries in previous Cabinets. Bihar has the misfortune of having a negative image and so it has sometimes been addressed with negative prefixes. But the new government of Lalu and Nitish alliance seems to have changed this perception. Today, Bihar is the second fastest growing economy in India, according to the Indian government's Central Statistics Organization. "Bihar has changed," Siddiqui told Saudi Gazette in an interview. "We have given voice to the voiceless segments of society. Their participation in administration and politics has been encouraged," he said. The road network in the state has improved a lot thanks to loans from the Asian Development Bank, which shows that they now have trust in Bihar. Bihar has huge investment potential in the education, agri-based industries, health, construction, electricity, and industrial sectors, said Siddiqui, who was here to perform Umrah. "I can assure you that we will clear all bureaucratic bottlenecks for investors. We are revising the 2011 industrial incentive policy. Our focus in this policy is to make sure that investors get all kind of protection. There is an industrial incentive board for this purpose," he said. Siddiqui also talked about his government's plan to establish a "language university" in Bodh Gaya, which is an international circuit where religious tourists from 20-25 countries come to visit Buddhist sites. These visitors speak about 45 languages. The language university will help train tourist guides as well as other students who want to learn a new language. An important step which the Nitish government took was to completely ban alcohol. But critics claim that the state is losing huge excise duty because of the ban. "We are ready to bear the huge excise loss to rid society of the evil of liquor consumption," said Siddiqui, adding that the ban has shown positive results. Crime rates dropped by 27 percent and road accidents by 33 percent after the liquor ban came into effect on April 5, according to official data. He said that on the political front, Bihar has provided a model of grand alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This model should be replicated in the parliamentary elections. "Bihar has shown the way to Muslims in India. They did not react on the streets to all sorts of communally polarizing comments, rather they displayed their unity and strength through the ballot box," said Siddiqui.
