Stepping up his attack on UPA government ahead of Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today accused the Centre of cheating Bihar and its people by putting the demand of special status in cold storage.

"We have been cheated by the Centre as it put the process for grant of special status to Bihar or an equivalent situation in the cold stage due to political reasons," he said at the JD-U's ninth Sankalp rally here. Kumar lamented that the Centre deferred at the very last minute the meeting of a committee headed by the Union Finance Ministry on November 26 last when it was slated to take a decision on granting special status or something equivalent to it on basis of Raghuram Rajan committee report.

"It was done so due to political reasons," he said, adding the Centre's retrograde step was nothing but cheating with Bihar and its people.