Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched his campaign for the November Bihar Assembly elections with back-to-back rallies in Samastipur and Begusarai, weaving together a narrative of social justice, development and Hindutva, even as he cautioned people not to let “jungle raj” return to the state, accusing the Opposition Mahagathbandhan leaders of lawlessness and corruption.
Modi said the incumbent NDA under Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar would clinch the polls and break electoral records. Without declaring Nitish as the NDA’s CM candidate, Modi’s remarks were apparently meant to counter the Opposition’s barb that the BJP has fought shy of projecting Nitish as the CM face because it wanted to replace him after the elections.
The PM chose to launch his campaign by invoking the legacy of socialist icon and former Bihar CM Karpoori Thakur. Before addressing his first rally at Samastipur, he visited Karpoori Gram, the paternal village of Thakur, in Samastipur district in the Mithilanchal region. The Modi government conferred Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur last year.
“I went to Karpoori Gram before coming here. I got a chance to pay my tributes to him. It is due to his blessings that people like me and Nitish ji coming from backward and poor families are on this stage,” he told the crowd. “In independent India, in attempts to bring social justice, his role was very big. We had the good fortune of awarding him Bharat Ratna. He was our inspiration.”
Combining the themes of social justice, law and order and corruption for his attack on the Mahagathbandhan, Modi told the Samastipur rally: “The RJD and Congress people are those out on bail in scams running into thousands of crores. Now they are trying to steal the title Jan Nayak (people’s hero, an oblique dig at the Congress’s projection of Rahul Gandhi). People of Bihar will never tolerate this insult to Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur.”
Referring to the widespread belief that Goddess Sita, the wife of Lord Ram, was from Mithilanchal, he said, “Your son-in-law is Lord Ram himself. So, when the Ram Temple was built in Ayodhya, people in Mithila were very happy.”
In Begusarai, Modi called the Opposition Maha-lathbandhan, a neologism that evoked lathi (baton) to ridicule the INDIA bloc allies for taking on each other over issues like seat-sharing.
Story continues below this ad
He also accused the Congress of “insulting” former party president Sitaram Kesri, who hailed from Bihar.
“It was in October 2005 that Bihar was liberated from jungle raj and the good governance of Nitish ji began. But for the next 10 years, the Congress at the Centre tried to keep Bihar backward. They were taking revenge on you for voting for the NDA. The RJD would also pressure the Congress not to give any project to Bihar. With all our allies, Nitish ji is working day and night … A new era of development has begun. The NDA government at the Centre has given three times the funds to Bihar as compared to the UPA government.”
In Begusarai, too, Modi made similar remarks. In both the speeches, he asked the gathering to switch on their mobile torch, and when many people did so, he said, referring to the RJD’s poll symbol, “Itni light hai, har ek ke haath mein light hai, toh lalten chahiye kya? Bihar ko lalten aur unke saathi nahin chahiye (There is so much light, and in each hand, so does Bihar need the lantern? No, it does not).”
Balancing act
Modi repeatedly referred to the NDA in his speeches, taking care not to assert the BJP’s primacy in a state where the JD(U)’s role is crucial. However, while acknowledging Nitish’s leadership and praising his work, he underlined an impending “NDA sarkar” rather than a “Nitish sarkar”.
Story continues below this ad
“The whole of Bihar is saying: ‘Phir ek baar, NDA sarkar; phir ek baar sushasan sarkar; jungle raj waalon ko, door rakhega Bihar (Once again, NDA government; once again good governance government; Bihar will keep jungle raj out),” Modi said.
He recounted the NDA’s wins in several state Assembly elections in recent years, adding that “even this time, under the leadership of Nitish babu”, the NDA was going to break records.
He was accompanied by Nitish at both the rallies.
Modi said in Samastipur that the NDA government had given primacy to the OBCs, EBCs, Dalits, Mahadalits, and the poor in the general category. He said the all-India quota for medical education earlier did not have reservation for the backwards and the poor, adding that the NDA government introduced this provision. He said the NDA granted constitutional status to the OBC Commission. Underlining that Karpoori was a votary of education in the mother tongue, he said his government’s new education policy had ensured it.
Flagging “jungle raj” under the dispensation of Lalu Yadav, the RJD chief, Modi alleged that the gates of police stations were then closed for Dalits and the poor, recalling crimes and Maoist violence during that period. He said once the NDA came to power at the Centre in 2014, he had promised to put an end to the Naxal insurgency. And “just as Maoism had ended in Bihar, it would soon end in India as a whole”.
