Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah speaks at a meeting of party workers in Patna yesterday.
IANS
Patna
Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday said people of the country had no faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s empty promises.
Addressing her first election rally in Bihar in Kahalgaon assembly constituency in Bhagalpur district, Gandhi said: “Modi is making hollow promises and the people have no faith in them.”
The upcoming Bihar assembly elections would give a new direction to the country, she said adding: “Vote for the grand alliance of Congress, JD-U (Janata Dal-United) and RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) to get rid of the empty promises of Modi.”
The polls for the 243-member Bihar assembly will take place in five phases between October 12 and November 5, with the counting to be held on November 8.
Gandhi said the prime minister spent more time abroad than in his own country and loves hugging powerful people.
“Modi’s government is working for industrialists only, this government is anti-poor and anti-farmer.”
The Congress chief blamed the government’s wrong policies for causing inflation in the country and leading to a big army of unemployed youths.
Gandhi also said reservation for Dalits and Other Backward Classes was according to the constitution and no one could end it.
Meanwhile, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s younger son Tejaswi Yadav filed his nomination papers from Raghopur constituency yesterday.
Cricketer-turned-politician Tejaswi, 26, filed the papers, accompanied by his father, elder brother Tej Pratap and other RJD leaders in Hajipur, the district headquarters of Vaishali, about 30km from Patna.
Tejaswi exuded confidence and said: “People have been supporting me and will vote for me in the polls. It is my traditional family seat.”
Tej Pratap, 27, is contesting from Mahua constituency.
Both Mahua and Raghopur are adjacent constituencies in Vaishali district, not far from Patna. Vaishali is considered a RJD stronghold.
Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, both former chief ministers, won several elections between 1995 and 2010 from Raghopur.
Tejaswi Yadav, a popular face of the party, recently attended a rally with Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in West Champaran district.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded Satish Kumar Yadav, who joined the party hours before being declared its candidate, from Raghopur. He was denied a ticket by the JD-U when the Raghopur seat was given to the RJD under a seat-sharing formula.
In 2010, Satish Yadav defeated Rabri Devi by 63,000 votes.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Lalu Prasad’s elder daughter Misa Bharti, a doctor, lost from Patliputra parliamentary seat in Patna.
l Two great grandsons of Bihar’s first chief minister, Sri Krishna Sinha, are contesting against each other in the elections.
Anil Shankat Sinha and Amritansh Anand are seeking votes in the name of Sri Krishna Sinha, popularly known as Sri Babu, in the semi-urban Barbigha constituency in Sheikhpura district.
Both are contesting for the first time.
Anil Shankat Sinha is a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate while Amritansh Anand is an independent.
Both are campaigning for over 12 hours daily, in small towns and villages in the Bhumihar-Brahmin dominated constituency.
“I have a single agenda: to work for the people and to develop Barbigha,” Anil Shankat Sinha says.
“I was planning to contest as an independent but the NCP offered me a ticket,” said the graduate from Pune University.
He said it’s not the party that matters but Sri Babu’s legacy.
“My name carries his legacy. For me, Sri Babu’s name is enough. People still respect him.”
Anil Shankar Sinha said he left a lucrative job with a private mobile service provider to work for the people in Barbigha.
Amritansh Anand, another great grandson of Sri Babu, runs a school and has been active in the constituency for three years. He is also the son of former Bihar police chief Anand Shankar.
