Bihar Polls: 1st Phase of Polling for 49 Seats Tomorrow

If pre-election surveys are to be believed, it will be no cakewalk for anyone including the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as well as the Grand Alliance of the ruling JD-U, RJD and Congress.

Sahani, along with BJP Bihar State President Mangal Pandey, accompanied Amit Shah in Saturday’s three rallies held at Samastipur, Rajauli and Gor.

Stating that he wish to reply to the issues raised by PM during his whirlwind election tour of Bihar, Kumar refused to accept PM’s “hiding behind the statement of the President on Greater Noida incident where a man was killed over rumour of cow slaughter”. He just comes to Bihar, speaks on his own and then vanishes.

However, Shatrughan Sinha managed to get out of tricky situations due to his closeness to Advani.

Adding further he wrote in his message “I defy him to come and have a debate on the issue, futile talks and your “Maan ki Baat” are doing any benefit to the hungry and poor of this country”. Though actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha was absent from the scene, the BJP fielded Hema Malini, Smriti Irani, Manoj Tiwari and actor Ajay Devgn to root for its candidates.

As Lalu and the anti-BJP alliances Chief Ministerial candidate Nitish Kumar harped on the alleged move to scrap quotas, rally after rally, to consolidate the backward caste votes, the RJD supremos “Hindus also eat beef” remark made in the aftermath of the Dadri lynching episode, gave the BJP and Modi an opportunity to counter one sensitive issue with another. Similarly, Nitish Kumar has been talking less about development and more about identitarian issues like Bihari pride, caste background of BJP’s speculated C.M candidate and reservation.

Rival campaigns revolved around Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

“Development can not take place in Bihar if Nitish and Lalu are together”.

Therefore, Dalits and Mahadalits, despite being the prime beneficiaries of welfare measures of Nitish Kumar government, are decisively tilted towards BJP this time as Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi, senior Dalit and Mahadalit leaders, are aligned with the saffron party.

Sinha has time and again reminded party leaders that he joined the BJP in 1984 at the height of his film career and when the party had only two members in the Lok Sabha.

In his 57-minute news conference, Nitish dissected nearly all of the Prime Minister’s recent political speeches in the state and countered the allegations levelled against the JDU government – on law and order, kidnappings, power shortage, water woes and lack of health infrastructure.