PM Modi, Nitish Kumar come together after 9 years to sound poll bugle in Bihar

Mangalore Today News Network

Patna, March 3, 2019: Sounding the poll bugle for the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will host a mega rally, dubbed the ‘Sankalp Rally’ at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on Sunday.

The rally comes exactly a month after the Congress held the first-of-its-kind ‘Jan Akanksha’ Rally at the same venue. The public meeting holds significance because Modi and Kumar will share the stage for the first time after 2010.

The March 3 rally, which will also feature LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, is reportedly an effort to show full faith and confidence in the Prime Minister for handling the post-Pulwama crisis, which culminated in India’s “non-military” air strikes on Pakistan’s Balakot to demolish JeM camps, state presidents of the parties had said on Friday.

In a joint press conference earlier this week, Bashishtha Narayan Singh, LJP president Pashupati Kumar Paras and Bihar BJP president Nityanand Rai said a “sea of humanity” would participate in the rally, touted to be “bigger than the biggest” of all the rallies held at the historic Gandhi Maidan till now.

Singh said the NDA partners have made arrangements for the participants at 14 places in Patna, while the MLAs, MLCs and MPs of BJP, JD(U) and LJP have made their own arrangements for their people. The participants will start arriving for the rally from Saturday itself and it would be a “hujoom of people” walking on the roads to Gandhi Maidan on Sunday, Singh said.

Explaining the purpose of the rally, Rai said, “A sea of humanity will be present at the rally to bless PM Modi for effective handling of the post-Pulwama crisis that the country faced.” It will also be an occasion to make a collective declaration to “end terrorism and work for the country’s development so that it joins the league of three biggest economies in the world under the leadership of PM Modi”, Rai said.

According to BJP and JD(U) leaders, the mammoth event will serve as a befitting reply to RJD-led opposition parties.

Political analysts are of the opinion that the success of the massive ‘Mahagathbandhan’ rally in Kolkata on January 9 and Rahul Gandhi’s Jan Akanksha Rally in Patna on February 3 has raised the political temperature in Bihar and other states. The NDA’s ‘Sankalp Rally’, they said, could be an effort to counter the expanding political base of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’.

Nitish Kumar had ended his 17-year alliance with the BJP in 2013 after Modi was declared the prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 general elections. However, his party won just two seats in the 2014 polls. Of the total 40 seats in Bihar, the NDA had won 31 in 2014.

After the Lok Sabha elections, the JD(U) entered into an alliance with the RJD and Congress in Bihar during the 2015 assembly elections and Kumar returned as chief minister. However, he dumped the RJD-Congress-led grand alliance in July 2017, returned to NDA fold and formed a government in Bihar with BJP’s support.

Kumar’s return resulted in a split in the NDA as two of its constituents — Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) — joined hands with the RJD and Congress.

As per the seat-sharing formula, the JD(U) and BJP in Bihar will contest on 17 seats each and Paswan-led LJP will get the remaining six seats for the 2019 general elections.