The BJP on Tuesday launched its campaign for Bihar Assembly polls with party president Amit Shah taking a dig at the proposed merger of the Janata Parivar, saying “zero plus zero is zero.” Addressing a party workers’ conclave here at Gandhi Maidan, Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked the cadre not to rest until a BJP Government is formed with two-thirds majority in the State.
Many other senior leaders, including Union Ministers, MPs and State leaders also addressed the meet and called upon party workers to uproot the Nitish Kumar-led regime and prepare for the crucial Assembly election due in October-November.
Taking a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who he accused of stabbing the public mandate of 2010 in the back, and RJD chief lalu Prasad, Shah said: “I want to tell them that zero plus zero is always a zero. Their merger will have no impact on us. We don’t know who will be the leader after the merger. It may be Nitish, it may be Rabri Devi. But in any case, it will bring back Jungle Raj.”
Rajnath Singh, who literally rejected the demand for special category status to Bihar, asserted that increase in the States’ share through increased devolution of Central funds from 32 to 42 per cent, will be enough to bring growth and prosperity to the State.
“But Central funds must be used properly and honestly,” he added.
Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his leadership and the work done in a brief span of ten months, Singh said: “Today India has emerged as a big power on the global map and attained a special position.
Pakistan had been indulging in nefarious activities and I am told the UPA Government had ordered restraint despite firing from across the border. But now we have started giving Pakistan a befitting reply.”
Paying tributes to those who lost their lives during the October 27, 2013 BJP rally at the same venue that had been addressed by Modi and Singh amid bomb explosions; the Home Minister also recalled the glorious past of Bihar and said all the revolutions started from this State. But, he added, that those who had been ruling the State for a longer period were responsible for its backwardness and deterioration.
Shah, the president of the largest party in the world, with over ten crore members, said it is the responsibility of the BJP workers to make Bihar the number one State by ensuring the victory of the BJP in Assembly elections with two-thirds majority. He said against a target of 75 lakh members in Bihar, nearly 90 lakh members have been enrolled and by the end of April this number should touch the one crore mark.
Earlier, former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi reminded the workers that during the 15-year rule of lalu and Rabri, over 10,000 traders fled Bihar out of fear, there had been a series of scams in which a dozen Ministers went to jail and that the regime was branded as Jungle Raj by the Patna High Court.
“Now attempts are being made to bring back Jungle Raj II, as Nitish has joined hands with lalu,” he said while asking the cadre to frustrate their designs to put the State back in the dreadful era.
“lalu and Nitish are daydreaming. Despite the merger, the two parties will be eliminated in the election,” said leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Nand Kishore Yadav. Several Union Ministers including Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Ram Kripal Yadav besides Shahnawaz Hussain and State BJP president Mangal Pandey also addressed the meeting.
However, in a major embarrassment for the party, its Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha was absent from the meet, even though the venue falls under his constituency and he was supposed to play host. But Sinha, who was here a few days ago, reportedly expressed his annoyance with State leaders for neither inviting him nor putting his photos on a single hoarding. Sinha earlier faced a peculiar situation when some unknown people put up ‘Sinha missing’ posters near his residence. Sinha’s aides said it was the handiwork of his rivals in the party. When another senior leader and Buxar MP Ashwani Kumar Choubey tried to go to the dais he was stopped by security personnel on the plea that his name did not figure in the list of VVIPs who were to share the dais with senior leaders, leaving Choubey fuming.