Sharpening his attack on Nitish Kumar for wrecking a viable coalition in pursuit of his Prime Ministerial ambitions and exuding confidence that the NDA would form the next Government at the Centre, Narendra Modi challenged the Chief Minister of Bihar and other States opposed to the BJP to publicly declare whether or not they would accept special assistance for their States from a regime led by him. Although the Gujarat Chief Minister did not elaborate, the message would not have been lost in West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and the successor States of Andhra Pradesh.
Addressing phenomenal crowds at his third Hunkar Rally in Purnia (the second was at Muzaffarpur on March 3) on Monday, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate attacked his Bihar counterpart for arrogantly returning the Rs 5 crore assistance offered by the people of Gujarat for the Kosi flood victims in June 2010, and said such leaders have a callous disregard for welfare of the people. Demanding that the Bihar leader apologise publicly for this sin, Narendra Modi pointed out that Bihar needs assistance and an opportunity to rise to new heights and promised to do whatever was needed because the BJP wanted the development of India as a whole.
But, he warned the people, the attitude of leaders whose arrogance has touched the seventh heaven may come in the way of the Centre offering a special package, special status or special attention to the State. Rubbing in the snub given to the Gujarati people, the Gujarat strongman said, “In democracy such arrogance is not forgiven”. He demanded that all leaders hopeful of special assistance for their States from a dispensation presided over by him (Modi) should publicly declare in advance whether they would accept such help or refuse it.
Reiterating his regret about uneven growth in the country, the Narendra Modi said that for the prosperity of the nation as a whole, growth must be balanced and equitable, hence the NDA would lay special emphasis on all eastern States, be it Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, the entire northeast, Assam, or West Bengal. But he wanted States with inimical leaders to inform their people in advance whether or not they would accept such aid. Without naming Nitish Kumar, he accused him of stabbing the BJP in the back and betraying the ideals of Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia.
Pointing out that coalitions at the Centre were now an inescapable reality of Indian politics, Narendra Modi said that coalitions led by the BJP are always successful “because we carry everyone along”. Making a special appeal to the social groups represented by Upendra Kushwaha and Ram Vilas Paswan, he said that the BJP was not interested in just forming the Government at the Centre, but stood for a strong, stable and progressive Government, committed to development. In a dig at the UPA, he said the time had come to get rid of the sick ailing regime in Delhi, where “some leaders are so arrogant that if you say anything about them, they lose sleep till someone writes and gives them something” (to reply, an obvious allusion to Congress president Sonia Gandhi).
As for the Third Front, he mused, its constituent parties are either those which have saved the Congress regime at the Centre, or a group of former Prime Ministers or Prime Ministerial hopefuls. More than a dozen such aspirants, he joked to a highly responsive and enthusiastic crowd, have even had a special dress stitched for their swearing-in ceremony and are waiting for the call! Pausing for dramatic effect, he suddenly thundered, “did these netas come during the Kosi floods?” As the people responded with cries of “No! No!” he asked how those who did not come forward during the Gujarat earthquake or the Assam massacre, or when the head of a jawan was cut off, or when there were as many as 150 riots in Uttar Pradesh, could dare to come forward for the elections.
The Third Front, he said, is an entity that comes to life only when the bugle for elections is sounded; it then rises from slumber and again returns to deep sleep once the elections are over. Summing up the different coalition cultures in the country, Narendra Modi said the first type of coalition was the one headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee; then there is the corrupt front of leaders who have to save each other; and finally there is the lath-bandhan of those who believe in muscle power. Democracy cannot work under the latter two, and only the NDA coalition can genuinely serve the people.
Alluding to the lawlessness that led to the ouster of Lalu Prasad Yadav, Narendra Modi reminded the people that Bihar had once voted to be free of ‘jungle raj’ and now it must lead the nation to freedom from ‘jungle raj’ – the corrupt UPA regime. The Congress ‘shehzada’, he said, is moving about the whole country with the attitude of someone who has just landed from Mars. The UPA has been in power for 10 years, Narendra Modi said, and demanded that the Congress vice president explain the performance of the past decade, and take responsibility for the failures, the price rise, the corruption.
Repeatedly referring to Rahul Gandhi as shehzada, Narendra Modi said that the leader keeps chanting that the Congress brought Information Technology (IT), computers and mobile phones to the country, and asked if villages get electricity to charge the mobile phones? Asserting that IT is an imperative tool of the 21s century and that youth must receive computer training in school itself, he said the Centre had failed abysmally to fulfill its responsibility in this regard.
In Bihar, he said, the youth are so talented that most television reporters, IAS and IPS officers hail from the State, but education facilities are appalling and even two per cent schools do not have computers. Similarly, in the Congress ruled Assam only seven per cent schools have computers; in Haryana only 40 per cent have computers though Gurgaon is an important IT hub; in Maharashtra it is only 45 per cent; in Rajasthan ruled by the Congress till two months ago it is only 22 per cent; and in Uttar Pradesh where laptops were distributed to garner votes only 10 per cent schools are equipped with computers. In contrast, Gujarat which is the bête noire of all, has succeeded in equipping 71 per cent schools, because this is the way to empower youth. All talk of the 21st century is hollow without computer training, he said, and taunted one clever Union Minister (Kapil Sibal) for promising to give every youth an Aakash Tablet; he demanded that Rahul Gandhi explain where the money for the Tablet has gone and why IT has not reached the youth if Congress brought it to the country.
Lamenting the deaths of school children in the State’s mid-day meal programme, he said that a government survey has revealed that 1900 schools, including 90 in Patna, exist only on paper, but are drawing full budgets from the State exchequer. Condemning this loot of public funds, he demanded an enquiry into the siphoning off of funds.
Directly appealing to the huge Yadav community in both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Narendra Modi said that the land of Dwarka has an intimate connection with the ‘Yaduvanshis’ and said that though this community had contributed leaders to both States, they had done nothing for the welfare of the milk farmers. Revealing that the leaders had privately approached him (Modi) to get the Amul Dairy to purchase milk from the States’ cattlemen, he pointed out that milkmen in Uttar Pradesh, who had to sell milk at Rs18 per litre began to earn Rs35-40/litre once Amul began its operations in the State. Urging the herdsmen to abandon leaders who have not cared for their interests, he also reached out to the marginal ‘Kolhaiya samaj’ that claimed to be of Gujarati origin, and to the huge fishermen community that was condemned to a marginal existence though Bihar imports Rs400 crores of fish every year from Andhra Pradesh. It is the duty of government, he stressed, to worry about how each and every section of society earns its living. Instead, the once thriving Purnia jute industry had died due to a similar attitude of unconcern. Law and order was virtually non-existent, and an old man who had gone to pay his electricity bill was caught and beaten to death in a police station.
Terrorism and Naxalism pose the biggest threats to Bihar, Narendra Modi said, but the politics of vote-banks was preventing any serious action on these fronts. Secularism has become the mask of the various political parties that have ruled Bihar, and they specialize in fooling and ruining the Muslim community.
Reciting figures from the Sachar Committee Report, he said that in Bihar, 45 per cent of urban Muslims are poor whereas in Gujarat the corresponding figure is only 24 per cent; 38 per cent rural Muslims are poor in Bihar and only 7 per cent in Gujarat. The truth was equally galling in respect of other indices such as spending power, literacy, employment, deaths of new born and under5 children, and coverage under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. Condemning the politics of disunity and discrimination (bhed bhao), he urged the people to rise from the clutches of this terrible governance (kut awastha) and embrace the diversity of India with its myriad faiths, languages, customs, social groups, while maintaining the unity of nation, flag, culture (sanskaar), aspirations and goals. “A billion faces must bear one smile” he said, summing up his vision for India.
Narendra Modi congratulated the people of Bihar for their stoicism in the face of bomb blasts during his first Hunkar Rally on October 27, 2013, and greeted them for the forthcoming festival of Holi. Paying respects to the famous Purnia Devi, he noted that the hoary land of Purnia has been mentioned in the Puranas and in each yuga (epoch); it made a sterling contribution to the freedom struggle.
Other speakers included Sushil Modi; Nand Kishore Yadav; Mangal Pandey; Ram Chandra Paswan; Uday Singh; Rajiv Pratap Rudy; Shahnawaz Hussain; CP Thakur; Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, Radha Mohan Singh and Kirti Azad.
Niticentral.com, 10 March 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/10/in-march-to-delhi-namo-asks-for-bihars-help-198415.html