BJP rolls out 160 raths to propel Bihar poll campaign

Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Thursday launched his party's high-tech 'Parivartan Rath' campaign for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls and appealed to people to vote for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for development of the state and to end the 'jungle raj'.

"The BJP-led NDA is the only option that will make Bihar the number one state. I appeal to people to vote us for the development of Bihar and to end the jungle raj," Shah said in his speech, minutes before he flagged off 160 GPS-fitted raths (chariots), to reach out to people in all villages across the state, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's July 25 rally in Muzaffarpur.

Shah said he was confident that going by the mood of the people, the NDA will form the next government in the state as was reflected in the recently-concluded Bihar legislative council polls in which the BJP-led NDA won 13 of the 34 council seats.

The BJP chief also said that Modi, at his public rally in Muzaffarpur, would announce a development plan for the state.

Asserting that the Bihar election result will send a strong signal and message across the country, Shah said that the BJP planned to hold 100,000 meetings in 100 days in the 243 assembly seats.

Shah said the 'Parivartan Rath' will reach out to people in every village with a clear message that if voted to power, the NDA government will provide roads, ambulances, clean drinking water, electricity, education, health and jobs.

Targeting Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav during his over-half-an hour speech in Patna, he said: "Nitish has back-stabbed the people's verdict by ending the alliance with the BJP and joining hands with Lalu Prasad's RJD. The people will give him a reply in the polls.”

According to state BJP leaders, every 'Parivartan Rath' will visit at least five villages in a day to hold public meetings. The BJP will reach out to 800 villages across the state to counter the propaganda by the new combine of JD-U, RJD, Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said people are fed up with Nitish Kumar's bad governance and deteriorating law and order in the state.

He claimed that the party’s raths will expose the failures of the Nitish Kumar's government and the bad governance of the infamous 15 years of Lalu-Rabri rule in Bihar through a video film in Hindi.