Barbs, bluster as rallies for Rd 1 of Bihar polls wind up

Campaigning for the crucial first phase of the assembly elections in Bihar ended on Tuesday as top leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Opposition Grand Alliance crisscrossed the poll-bound state, exchanging jibes and making promises to the 74.2 million electorate.

- Subhash Pathak and Vijay Swaroop

In the first phase on November 6, 121 seats across 18 districts go to the polls. The campaigning was dominated by questions of jobs, development, law and order caste loyalties and women voters as the NDA accused the Opposition of disrespecting Bihar's culture and ushering in 'Jungle Raj' and the INDIA bloc alleged the ruling coalition had failed the state's young population.

From the NDA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually interacted with the Bharatiya Janata Party's women workers, chief minister Nitish Kumar addressed two meetings, Union home minister Amit Shah addressed three rallies, and chief ministers of two states held two meetings.

Modi asked workers to focus on women voters, a key constituency of CM Kumar.

"I have seen this election closely, and one thing I can say is that the NDA is winning this election with a huge majority. I have no doubt about NDA's victory. The people of Bihar have made up their mind that this time they are going to make NDA victorious and break the record of the last 20 years. The people of 'jungle raj' will see their biggest defeat. The development of Bihar can only be done under the NDA," he said.

From the Opposition, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Tejashwi Yadav held six rallies and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi addressed three meetings.

"Narendra Modi ji and Nitish ji talk about Jungle Raj. Narendra Modi ji has implemented Jungle Raj by engaging in vote theft. The BJP people, after stealing the governments of Maharashtra, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh, now want to steal the government of Bihar," Rahul Gandhi said.