GOPALGANJ: Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday sounded the bugle for Bihar assembly polls due later this year, urging the people to strengthen the hands of PM Modi by voting the BJP-led NDA back to office.
Addressing a rally in Gopalganj, a stronghold of the RJD, Shah also charged the opposition party’s president Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, both of whom had together governed the state for 15 years, with running a “jungle raj“, alleging that murders, kidnappings and dacoities became an industry in the state while they were in office.
It was the first public meeting addressed by Shah, regarded as the BJP’s principal strategist, in Bihar since last year’s Lok Sabha polls.
“Major businessmen fled the state, worried about their own safety. Lalu also made Bihar infamous the world over because of his involvement in the fodder scam,” Shah claimed.
He said things began to improve when BJP, in alliance with JDU headed by CM Nitish Kumar, formed a government in the state.
If the NDA returns to power later this year, Bihar’s decades-old problem of annual floods will become a thing of the past, he said.
“The people of Bihar have a choice to make between the Lalu-Rabri duo, representing the jungle raj, and development under Modi and Nitish,” said Shah. “I hope you all will press the lotus button, in the assembly polls later this year and vote for the BJP-led NDA. The people of Bihar have always shown their affection for Modi. I am sure you will strengthen his hands further,” he said.
Shah had interacted with senior party leaders in the state capital late Saturday night when he is said to have remarked that a victory in Bihar has a far-reaching impact and “we must strive to win the assembly polls”.
Shah pulled no punches in lambasting the RJD supremo for alleged nepotism, accusing him of making his wife the CM, getting his daughter elected to Parliament and “now both his sons want to become the CM”.
