PATNA, July 20:
With RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and senior JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar attacking the Centre for not releasing the socio-economic caste census, Union Minister Ananth Kumar today charged the two leaders with indulging in negative campaign ahead of the state Assembly polls.
“Lalu and Nitish are indulging in negative campaign in contrast to the positive agenda being set by the NDA in the run-up to the Assembly polls in Bihar,” the Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister told reporters.
Here to inaugurate NDA’s regional office, the Union Minister alleged that Prasad and Kumar were spreading rumours on the caste census issue in order to serve their “narrow” political and electoral interests.
He also took the JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav to task for allegedly creating an atmosphere of confrontation among castes by his insistence for release of caste data.
The minister, also BJP’s Bihar in-charge for Assembly polls, described the tie-up between RJD and JD(U) as an alliance of “fraud and opportunism”.
Apparently seeking to create a wedge between RJD and JD(U), Kumar said, “Despite firming up alliance with the RJD, Nitish Kumar is working out plus and minus of association with Lalu Prasad.”
The two leaders of the secular alliance are locked in a battle for oneupmanship in order to play a dominant role in the alliance, he claimed.
While the secular alliance has been formed in a ‘fraudulent’ manner, the NDA comprising BJP, LJP, RLSP and HAM (Secular) was a structured arrangement aimed at representing aspirations of the people to usher in a change of guard in Bihar at the hustings, he said.
“For us, the ouster of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar from power is not the only question. We would like to bring development and industrialisation in Bihar to address problems like economic backwardness and unemployment,” he said.
The NDA will also endeavour to stop return of the 15-years ‘jungle raj’ of Lalu Prasad and oust Nitish Kumar, and put in place good governance in Bihar, he said.
Stating that the NDA has made ‘parivartan’ (change) as its theme for the Assembly polls, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will himself kick off NDA’s campaign at a rally in Muzaffarpur on July 25.
Ananth Kumar said the BJP-led alliance will reach out to people through rallies and video-rath while mobilise workers at booth level to ensure preparedness for the polls.
On NDA’s chief ministerial candidate, he said that the BJP-led alliance aimed to win the polls first and the rest will be decided later. (PTI)
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