Modi Targets RJD, Cong in Marker for Bihar Elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a meeting in Siwan, Bihar, targeted the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, talked up his National Democratic Alliance's development credentials, and inaugurated projects worth ₹11,000 crore from a stage replete with eight Union ministers, the state's chief minister and two deputy chief ministers, providing a curtain raiser to assembly elections due later this year.

- Arun Kumar

The Congress and the RJD hurt Bihar's pride and kept the state poor due to mafia raj, goonda raj and corruption, Modi said, taking a pointed shot at RJD's Lalu Prasad and alleging that the former chief minister insulted BR Ambedkar.

The PM was speaking after laying the foundation stone of and inaugurating multiple development projects worth ₹11,000 crore. Modi, who is on a three-state tour, inaugurated the new Vaishali-Deoria railway line and a Vande Bharat Express between Patliputra and Gorakhpur via Muzaffarpur and Bettiah. He also flagged off a state-of-the-art locomotive—the first built at a plant in Marhowra in Saran district—for export to the Republic of Guinea.

Modi said the Congress did not allow Bihar to move out of poverty and the worst sufferers were Dalit, Mahadalit, backward classes and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), while in the last 11 years a record 250 million Indians moved out of poverty.

"Bihar under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar played a key role in it, as 3.75-crore (37.5 million) people from the state pulled themselves out of poverty.