Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 24: A day after the opposition INDIA bloc challenged the ruling NDA to declared its chief ministerial face in Bihar, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday virtually named the incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar as the group’s leader to retain the top post if the alliance was voted back to power.
Mr Modi maintained that the NDA by contesting the elections under the leadership of Nitish Kumar would not only comfortably win the elections with a massive margin but would also break all the previous electoral records while taking a swipe at the Opposition INDIA bloc, which he said was led by “people out on bail.”
“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 Modi said at the Samastipur rally in Bihar. “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,” PM Modi said.
Blazing through the state with back-to-back rallies in Samastipur and Begusarai, Mr Modi also sought to draw a contrast between a “fractured” opposition INDIA bloc and the “cohesive” NDA. Mr Modi said the BJP-led coalition, which included Chief Minister Kumar’s JD(U), Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) led by Chirag Paswan, Hindustani Awam Morcha headed by Jitan Ram Manjhi, and Rashtriya Lok Morcha led by Upendra Kushwaha, was united and focused on development.
“Entire Bihar is saying ‘phir ek baar NDA sarkar… phir ek baar sushasan sarkar‘,” the Prime Minister said kickstarting the bloc’s Bihar election campaign from the town of Samastipur. This is the first time the Prime Minister has spoken of contesting the election with Nitish as the face of the campaign, although it did not follow he will return as Chief Minister if the BJP-JDU retain power.
It also followed a sharp jibe by the Mahagathbandhan alliance over the BJP”s apparent reluctance to name a chief ministerial candidate, as it has. The opposition bloc on Thursday confirmed Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav as its presumptive Chief Minister if the Mahagathbandhan was voted to power.
And, as it did so, the opposition took a shot at the NDA; “I want to ask Amit Shah… our leader is Tejashwi Yadav. Now they should confirm who is their Chief Minister face,” the Congress leader Ashok Gehlot, who had been rushed to Bihar to resolve leadership issues between his party and the RJD, asked.
Yadav, who twice served as deputy to Nitish Kumar, also weighed in, and claimed a remark by Home Minister Amit Shah last week – that NDA leaders will ‘sit together and decide’ on the new chief minister if the alliance wins the election – indicated Nitish Kumar’s days are numbered.
The JDU boss’ future has been the subject of speculation in the build-up to this election, with the opposition taunting him over his allies dithering over formally naming him its leader. Earlier this month Yadav also questioned Nitish Kumar’s mental health and fitness after a video of him greeting the Prime Minister – apparently repeatedly – was widely shared online.
The JDU, meanwhile, has repeatedly said it expects Nitish – already Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister – to remain in that role. In April, even as buzz over his future in the job began, the party put up large posters across Patna insisting Nitish Kumar would continue till 2030, when he will be 79 years old.
Those posters followed a remark by BJP leader Nayab Singh Saini, the Haryana Chief Minister, about the saffron party winning this election “under the leadership of Samrat Choudhary.” Choudhary is currently one of Bihar’s two deputy chief ministers.
Meanwhile, the PM 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 intoned, in one of several swipes at the RJD of ex-Chief Minister Lalu Yadav.
