PATNA: Union minister and LJP(RV) chief Chirag Paswan on Saturday said the RJD was highly mistaken and under illusion about its strength as the people of the state have never voted in its favour for the last 20 years, since 2005.“Their (RJD) performance in 2015 was due to alliance with JD(U) of CM Nitish Kumar and in 2020 because of the division of NDA votes as LJP (RV) had contested alone.
The situation and results of the previous two elections gave the RJD a false impression that they have enough support in Bihar to win the 2025 polls,” he said after meeting CM Nitish Kumar.He also lashed out at the opposition’s vote theft allegations and said they had started finding an excuse for the defeat from the beginning by raising doubts on the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls. “Instead of trying to mislead the people by PPT presentations, they should move court if they have proof,” he said without naming Rahul Gandhi.Chirag, whose party elected Govindganj MLA-elect Raju Tiwari as the legislature party leader in a meeting held on Saturday, said the LJP (RV) was given difficult seats as 26 of the 29 the party got had not been won by the NDA in 2020.“But PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah reposed faith in him and said I could win back those seats. We won from zero to 19 seats, including 16 which were not the sitting ones of the NDA,” Chirag said, adding, “We tried our best to live up to the trust the alliance had in us.”Chirag also took a swipe at RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav’s claim before the assembly election results that he would take oath as the CM on Nov 18. “This is arrogance. They talk like a dictator. It’s not the way of talking in a democracy where people’s mandate counts,” he said.The Union minister said the next five years will be a golden period for Bihar as PM Modi also spoke about the new MY (Mahila-Youth) equation replacing the Muslim-Yadav combine. He said the NDA manifesto is not a few pages but the blueprint for creating one crore jobs and employment by setting up industries in every district.Chirag praised CM Nitish for leading the alliance from the front despite bad weather while the so-called young leader sat in a room, saying he continued travelling by road for campaigning.He also dismissed speculations about his relationship with Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha and said it was a united NDA that clinched such a massive mandate.
