Under Nitish Kumar, NDA will break all electoral records in Bihar: PM at Samastipur rally
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that the “NDA under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar” will break all previous electoral records in the Bihar Assembly polls, while taking a swipe at the opposition INDIA bloc, which he said was led by “people out on bail”. Addressing his maiden election rally in the poll-bound state, the PM asked the crowds to switch on the lights of their mobile phones, and in a dig at the RJD, said, “When all people have access to such modern gadgets, there is no need for the lantern”. Showering praise on Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U) and seeks a fifth consecutive term in office, Modi alleged, “He came to power in 2005, but nearly a decade of his tenure was hampered by a hostile Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, which was constantly blackmailed by the RJD that it would withdraw support if cooperation was extended to the NDA government in Bihar.” The PM added, “The central assistance extended to Bihar in the last 11 years is three times what the state had received from the previous government. The state has turned the corner. It is now exporting fish, a far cry from the days when it was dependent on other states for its own needs. Makhana, which is a famous produce of Bihar, has access to markets far and wide”. “Bihar is now an attractive investment destination. I foresee a future in which every district will be teeming with startups of local youths”, the PM added. “All this would not have been possible had there been ‘jungle raj’ in Bihar. Don’t you remember that a former PM had said that of every rupee spent by the government, only 15 paise reached people. The money used to be devoured by a blood-stained hand (khooni panja)”, said Modi, in an obvious reference to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the poll symbol of Congress, the RJD’s alliance partner. “Bihar will keep the ‘jungle raj’ at bay and vote for good governance. ‘Nayee raftar se chalega Bihar, phir jab aayegi NDA sarkar’ (Bihar’s growth will speed up once NDA returns to power). RJD and Congress indulged in scams, their leaders are out on bail, and now they are trying to steal the ‘Jannayak’ title of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur,” Modi said. “Bihar is the land of a genius like Aryabhatta. Its people cannot repose their trust in the RJD-Congress combine, which had destroyed the rule of law. Kidnapping and extortion had flourished like a business. The worst sufferers of ‘jungle raj’ were our mothers and sisters and those from the weaker sections”, alleged Modi. “Also, under the RJD rule, a dozen-and-a-half districts of Bihar were infested with Maoist insurgency. Hundreds of people were murdered, and people were afraid of stepping out of their homes. When I came to power in 2014, I pledged to bring Maoism to an end. With utmost humility and satisfaction, I can say that we have broken the spine of Maoism. Soon, the country will be free of the menace. This is Modi’s guarantee”, the PM said. Modi also said, “In the last assembly polls in Gujarat, where the party has been in power for 30 years, all previous records were broken. Similar was the case in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana. I am confident that in Bihar, too, under Nitish Kumar, the NDA will break all previous records,” he said. In an apparent dig at INDIA bloc chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav, who, along with father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, is named in the land for jobs scam, the PM said, “The people of Bihar cannot repose their trust in people who are out on bail (zamaanat par chhute hue log)”.
“We will make Bihar free from crime and corruption”: RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav slams NDA govt
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav slammed the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Friday, claiming that crime and corruption have increased in Bihar. While pledging to rid Bihar of corruption and crime if he were elected, the RJD leader also claimed that the top five states in the nation that are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have the highest rates of crime. The decision to appoint Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) as chief Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav slammed the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Friday, claiming that crime and corruption have increased in Bihar. While pledging to rid Bihar of corruption and crime if he were elected, the RJD leader also claimed that the top five states in the nation that are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have the highest rates of crime. Speaking to reporters in Patna, Yadav said, “We don’t make broken, fragmented or false promises. We will do what we say… If Tejashwi Yadav becomes the Chief Minister, the people of Bihar will also become the Chief Minister. We will make Bihar free from crime and corruption…” The RJD leader asserted that when scams are happening across the state and no action has been taken, that is called “jungle raj”. “The Prime Minister himself listed 55 scams of Nitish Kumar. What action has been taken? When scams are happening and no action is being taken, that is jungle raj. There is not a single day in Bihar where there are no shootings, murders, looting, rapes, kidnappings…Uttar Pradesh has the highest crime rate in the entire country. Bihar is second. The top five BJP-ruled states in the entire country have the highest crime rate,” Yadav told reporters. The Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Bihar Assembly also accused the ruling government of misusing the Central agencies for their own benefit. “What are they doing there?… They only want to misuse the agencies. They will set up factories in Gujarat and want victory in Bihar; this is not going to happen,” the RJD leader said. Meanwhile, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan on Friday accused the Mahagathbandhan of focusing only on vote-bank politics, alleging that its leaders talk about Muslims but fail to give them proper representation and are driven by “personal ambitions” rather than public welfare.minister and deputy chief minister, respectively, was also criticised by the LJP (RV) chief. “They only want to retain their vote bank. They talk about Muslims, but when it comes to giving them representation, they give them nothing…Mukesh Sahani has been announced as the Deputy CM face, but he does not care about giving representation to people from his community… The people who have not gone out for campaigning, how will they work for Biharis? In the Mahagathbandhan, the battle is just for their personal ambitions…” Paswan said. Paswan later asserted that Muslims should understand the schemes provided by the NDA government, which are aimed at delivering benefits to all. “This is the same RJD to whom my father in 2005 said that they should make a muslim the Chief Minister. Why didn’t they make a muslim the CM?… They say something else and do something else. For them, Muslims are just their vote bank. Muslims should understand this and the schemes provided by our government are aimed at providing benefits to all,” the LJP (RV) leader added. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Mahagathbandhan cleared the air regarding its lead face in the alliance, with the declaration of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Bihar Leader of Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav as the Chief Ministerial face.
