PM slams RJD in first poll rallies amid virus in Bihar
There was a time in Bihar when electricity was supplied to the homes of the rich. The need for lanterns (RJD poll symbol) in today’s Bihar is over. Today, every poor household in Bihar has an electricity connection; there is light Narendra Modi
patna — Prime Minister Narendra Modi held his first election rally on Friday since the coronavirus took hold in the country in March, drawing thousands of cheering supporters standing shoulder to shoulder and ignoring social distancing rules.
India has been among the worst hit by the coronavirus, with the secondhighest amount of cases globally, and experts worry big gatherings like the political rallies could trigger a fresh spike in cases.
“I want to congratulate the people of Bihar for fighting a disaster like corona so well... the situation in some of the richest countries in the world is not hidden from anyone,” Modi said at the first of the three rallies scheduled in the state.
Modi began his speech by paying respects to two Bihar leaders who recently passed away -- Ram Vilas Paswan and RJD’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. The latter had resigned from the party before his death.
Taking a potshot at the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) without naming them, he said that those who once ruled Bihar are now again looking at the “developing state with their greedy eyes”.
But Bihar, he added, would not forget who pushed them back. He brought up the issue of Bihar’s worsening law and order and corruption in the past, in a
seeming reference to Lalu Prasad’s rule and the fodder scam. Asserting that Bihar was well on its way to development, he said that the era of ‘lantern’, the electoral symbol of the RJD, was over.
He also pointed to the opposition to the three central agricultural laws and alleged that the same stemmed from efforts to “protect the middlemen” just like the opposition “was speaking their language” during the Rafale controversy.
Attacking the RJD and the Congress, he said that as the Gujarat chief minister, he witnessed how the Centre then “wasted” 10 years of Bihar after their defeat. He added that to make India self-reliant, Bihar needs to vote for the
National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Modi praised the steps taken by the Bihar government to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the state.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, also present on the occasion, was full of praise for Modi’s “leadership”. Kumar said that if his government returned to power in Bihar, it would focus on the availability of irrigation facilities and benefits of latest technology in every village.
Multiple stages are set up during Bihar’s electoral rallies by the NDA to ensure physical distancing, with efforts to arrange chairs on the podiums at a distance for the crowd. —