SAMASTIPUR/BEGUSARAI: For the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday endorsed Nitish Kumar as the BJP-led NDA combine’s chief ministerial face, predicting that the alliance under his leadership would break all previous electoral records.
With just weeks to go before the high-stakes Bihar Assembly elections, the poll campaign moved into top gear as PM Modi kicked off his rallies, addressing twin events in the state. His endorsement of Nitish Kumar as NDA’s chief ministerial face came a day after RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was named by the Congress as Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial candidate. Tejashwi Yadav quickly claimed that the BJP had no intention of making Nitish Kumar the Chief Minister again.
Praising Nitish Kumar, PM Modi said: “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.”
“This time, under the leadership of Nitish Kumar, NDA will break all its previous records of victory. Bihar will give NDA its biggest-ever mandate,” he stressed.
Invoking the Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo’s popular ‘Sushasan Babu’ moniker, the Prime Minister said: “Entire Bihar is saying ‘Phir ek baar NDA sarkar… phir ek baar sushasan sarkar’,” while kickstarting the NDA’s election campaign from Samastipur.
There has been speculation about CM Nitish Kumar’s future in the build-up to this election, with the opposition taunting him over his allies’ delays in formally naming him their leader. The JD(U) has repeatedly asserted that the party expects Nitish Kumar—already Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister—to remain in that role.
PM Modi also praised the BJP for development work in Bihar over the past five years, declaring, “There is not a single corner where the BJP isn’t carrying out development work.”
“Bihar is now an attractive investment destination. I foresee a future in which every district will be teeming with local start-ups… all this would not have been possible had there been ‘jungle raj’ in Bihar,” he said.
As PM Modi addressed back-to-back rallies in Samastipur and Begusarai districts, he appealed to voters to keep at bay the opposition RJD-Congress combine led by “people out on bail.”
The PM also drew a contrast between a “fractious” INDIA bloc and the “cohesive” BJP-led coalition, which included JD(U), Lok Janshakti Party, and Hindustani Awam Morcha, headed by Union ministers Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi, respectively, besides Rashtriya Lok Morcha, headed by Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha.
All the alliance partners were present at the PM’s rally in Samastipur, where he also took exception to the “stealing of the epithet Jan Nayak” (people’s hero), recently used by Congress workers for Rahul Gandhi, even though it was largely associated with Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur, whose native village he visited before addressing the rally.
The 243-member Bihar Assembly will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11, with results set to be announced on November 14. The PM also highlighted that the BJP has been able to retain power in states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana, as well as Maharashtra, where it heads a coalition government. The Prime Minister took a swipe at the INDIA bloc, calling it a “Mahalathbandhan” (grand alliance where partners beat each other with sticks), a wordplay on ‘Mahagathbandhan’.
He also alleged that leaders of the RJD and the Congress, the two largest constituents of the INDIA bloc, were “most corrupt and out on bail,” and despite having been out of power for decades, were arrogant enough to snub alliance partners like the JMM and “take for a ride” the Vikassheel Insaan Party, which did not get a favourable share of seats, though its founder Mukesh Sahni has been promised the deputy CM post. The PM also urged women voters, whom he called “the worst sufferers of ‘jungle raj’,” to “slam your doors shut on Congress and RJD,” and remember that leaders of these parties had opposed the women’s reservation bill when it was brought to Parliament.
“You cannot expect the RJD-Congress to solve any of your problems. They are a problem by themselves. They are insensitive people who have the nerve to mock poor flood victims,” the PM alleged.
Highlighting the NDA’s contribution to Bihar’s growth, he said, “In the last 11 years, the state has received three times more central assistance than under the UPA government… today, the state, which was once dependent on other states for its requirements, is exporting fish. Makhana, a famous produce of this land, has received a boost, and we have set up a Makhana Board, which will transform its cultivation and marketing.” He also mentioned Maoist insurgency, which had “once plagued a dozen-and-a-half districts of the state, claiming hundreds of lives,” and said, “now it has been effectively curbed in Bihar. The Naxal menace will be wiped out completely from the country. This is the guarantee of Modi.”
Modi also raked up the “insult” and “humiliation” faced by the late Congress leader Sitaram Kesri, whom he called “the pride of Bihar.”
PM Modi began his Samastipur rally with a few sentences in Maithili, while in Begusarai, he spoke some lines in Angika. While in Samastipur, he paid tributes to Karpoori Thakur; in Begusarai, he referred to Padma Vibhushan awardee late folk singer Sharda Sinha as the “daughter-in-law of this land”.