IANS/Patna
The Bharatiya Janata Party will pick a chief minister for Bihar after the National Democratic Alliance led by it wins the assembly elections, party president Amit Shah said yesterday.
“The party and the parliamentary board will decide the name of the chief minister soon after we win a two-thirds majority,” Shah told reporters.
He said the people of Bihar did not want a return of the ‘jungle raj’, in a veiled reference to the grand alliance of the Janata Dal-United, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress.
“People do not want jungle raj-2. We will come to power in Bihar,” he asserted.
Shah said a BJP-led government was essential for Bihar’s development.
“Only (we) can develop Bihar because (RJD chief) Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and (Chief Minister) Nitish Kumar ruled the state for 25 years but it remained backward.”
The BJP chief accused the grand alliance of trying to divert the development issue in the election campaign by raking up issues of beef consumption and reservation in education and jobs. “We are committed to the development of Bihar.”
Shah reiterated that the BJP was not against reservation for Dalits and Other Backward Class in education and employment.
“We are in support of the reservation and we do not want any change in the present form of reservation.”
He said the NDA would win 32-34 of the 49 assembly constituencies where polling was held in the first phase on October 12 and 22-24 of the 32 constituencies which went to the polls on October 16.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the development plank was a “mukhauta” (mask) for the BJP and its real agenda was communalism.
The JD-U leader also told CNN-IBN news channel that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence over the lynching of a Muslim man based on rumours that he ate beef was “dangerous”.
“The BJP talks about development but its real agenda is communalism. Development is just a ‘mukhauta’ (mask), its real face is communal polarisation,” Nitish Kumar said.
He said the ongoing Bihar assembly elections were being fought on the issue of development.
“The mandate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was in favour of Narendra Modi but this election is all about the work that I have done as the chief minister,” he said.
“And Bihar (wants) me as its chief minister,” he added.
Nitish Kumar slammed Modi for not denouncing the September 28 lynching of the Muslim man in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh.
“The prime minister’s silence on Dadri incident is dangerous,” he said.
Nitish Kumar, a former BJP ally, said that party was desperate to win the battle for the 243-member Bihar assembly.
“The BJP is so desperate for victory in Bihar that the whole leadership has shifted to Patna.”
The staggered Bihar elections will end on November 5. The results will be known three days later.
In a related development police said senior BJP leader Prem Kumar, one of the contenders for the chief minister’s post if the NDA wins the polls, got a threatening letter asking him to withdraw from the election.
Prem Kumar, a five-time legislator who is contesting again from Gaya, was told to announce his withdrawal from the election.
“Prem Kumar was threatened with dire consequences if he failed to do so. In the letter, it was promised that all his expenditure in the polls will be returned,” a police official said.
According to the letter, Rajkumar Prasad is to be the new legislator of Gaya town.
However, Rajkumar Prasad alias Raju Barnwal, who is contesting the polls as an independent candidate, said the letter to Prem Kumar was part of a conspiracy to defame him and frame him in a false charge.
A team of BJP leaders from Gaya has met Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj and sought more security for Prem Kumar.
