‘Challenge Cong to make SIR, vote theft an election issue’

Janata Dal (United) working president Sanjay Jha on Monday said the Opposition’s allegations about deletion of voters through the Special Intensive Revision has no resonance on the ground in poll-bound Bihar.

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He challenged the Congress to make alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) an election issue.

In an interview to Smriti Kak Ramachandran, Jha, who is also Rajya Sabha lawmaker, said younger leaders from the Opposition cannot match the energy of the septuagenarian chief minister Nitish Kumar. Edited excerpts:

What will be the main poll plank of JD(U) in the upcoming polls?

‘Our track record speaks for itself. In addition to what was done by the state government using its own resources, the central government's policies and additional budgetary allocation has also been of great help and that has allowed us to take up big ticket programmes. Take the example of the Metro in Bihar... Today Patna is getting a new Metro. There was a time, before Nitish Kumar became CM, when people would prefer to spend the night inside the Patna railway station if their trains arrived past 5pm. Everyone in Bihar knows this. Today we are talking about the inauguration of the Metro which will run past 0pm; this is the change that has taken place.

Industries and investment are coming to Bihar, new development projects are taking off. These (past) five years are important because they have set the tone for where Bihar is headed in the next two decades and whether it will be among the top 10 states. For our part we have endeav-oured to provide more than just the basic sadak, bijli, paani (road, power and water)...we are talking of big ticket investments and projects.