It was the first public rally where home minister Amit Shah and Bihar chief minister leader Nitish Kumar shared the dais at an election rally here on Sunday.
In Burari, both the leaders showed no hesitation in displaying their bonhomie through their well-crafted words.
Nitish’s equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is well known. BJP and JDU leaders in Bihar believe that any decision regarding the two parties is taken after a discussion between Modi and Kumar.
Recently, Shah has become the public face of the PM-Bihar CM friendship. When a number of BJP leaders started questioning the leadership of Kumar after the Lok Sabha elections, it was Shah who clarified twice in public that Kumar is the leader of the NDA in Bihar and it will go for the 2020 assembly elections under his leadership. Nitish had also reciprocated the gesture by removing Prashant Kishor and Pawan Verma from the party for their anti-BJP stand.
During his speech, Nitish thanked PM Modi and Amit Shah for a people-centric budget. He addressed Shah as ‘desh ke lokpriya neta’ (popular leader of the country). For the first time, Nitish took a veiled attack at his former friend and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. “I was hearing to lot of people speaking here. Nothing has happened in Delhi in the last five years. It (AAP government) only says it has done lot of work but no work is visible,” said the Bihar CM.In August 2015, Kumar had invited Kejriwal to Bihar. During his visit, Kejriwal had publicly endorsed Nitish Kumar as the next chief minister. Later on, the two kept meeting whenever the Bihar CM visited the national capital.
“You gave 15 years to Congress, five years to the current government. Now, give a chance to the BJP-led NDA and we would prove how work is done,” Kumar told the crowd. A large part of his speech centred around the work done by his government in Bihar as compared to the work done by the Kejriwal government in Delhi.
Shah continued his attack on the AAP government and accused it of not fulfilling its poll promises. JDU was against the withdrawal of Article 370 and had walked out during the voting from both the Houses. However, on Sunday, Shah termed it one of the first major achievements during the second tenure of the Modi government. Shah also asked the crowd whether it was a right decision and the crowd support came with loud chants.
Meanwhile, Shaheen Bagh protest regularly features in Shah speeches and Burari was no different. “Are you with Shaheen Bagh?” he asked the crowd which replied with a ‘no’.
Both the leaders went to campaign for JDU candidate Shailendra Kumar from Burari.
Shah said all BJP workers should work thrice as hard for JDU as they work for BJP. “Remember our symbol in Burari is arrow and you should all work hard for JDU candidate. We know how to live up to the coalition dharma,” he said.
Source: Economic Times
