Saran: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday took a swipe at the opposition RJD for giving a ticket to late gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin’s son, Osama Shahab, asking how it can ensure the security of the people of Bihar if it fields such candidates.
Addressing an election rally in Saran district in the poll-bound state, Shah claimed the NDA will return to power in the state with the biggest majority in 20 years.
“I just saw the list of RJD candidates for the upcoming polls. The name of Shahabuddin’s son is on the list. You tell me, if RJD gives a ticket to Shahabuddin’s son, how can Bihar remain safe? You people need to remain alert about parties like RJD,” he told the rally.
The RJD has fielded Shahab from the Raghunathpur assembly constituency in Siwan, once considered the stronghold of his father, who had been a several-term RJD MP.
Shah said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made Bihar free from ‘jungle raj’ in the last 20 years.
“If one has to take a vow to fight against Lalu’s ‘jungle raj’, or remind about how Lalu-Rabri had kept Bihar’s youth in check 20 years ago, then Saran is the best-suited place for that,” he said.
Listing the development works undertaken by the NDA government in the state, the senior BJP leader said that now it doesn’t even take five hours to travel from one corner of Bihar to another because of the slew of infrastructure projects implemented.
“This development has been done together by PM Narendra Modi and CM Nitish Kumar. Before our government came here, migration, extortion, murders, and kidnappings were common. But we have built a lot of engineering and medical colleges, and upgraded roads,” he said.
Shah claimed the NDA government in the state successfully curbed migration.
“People of Bihar are celebrating four Diwalis this year — on the day of Diwali, on the day when the NDA government transferred Rs 10,000 into the accounts of ‘Jeevika Didis’, on the day when GST was reduced, and on November 14, when the results of the elections will be announced,” he said.
Saran was RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s pocket borough for over three decades. He represented the Lok Sabha seat four times — 1977, 1989, 2004 and 2009, but after his conviction in the fodder scam case, which debarred him from contesting elections, Saran slipped out of the RJD’s hands.
In 2014, Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi was fielded from Saran, but she was defeated by the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy. In 2019, Rudy defeated Prasad’s relative Chandrika Roy, and last year, he beat his daughter Rohini Acharya.
Shah said that while the NDA is contesting the elections in the state under the leadership of Kumar, PM Modi is leading the coalition at the national level.
He reiterated that the Modi government scrapped Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and facilitated the construction of the “grand temple” in Ayodhya for Lord Ram, “who was living in a ‘jhopri’ (hut) for 500 years”.
“Now, a grand temple for Goddess Sita is being built at Punauradham in Bihar,” he said Shah claimed terrorists used to play Holi with blood during the UPA rule at the Centre, but the Modi government struck terror camps inside Pakistan. PTI PKD SOM
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.