E-Paper
Congress plans campaign against Narendra Modi in Bihar
After a serious defeat in the Bihar Legislative council elections on Friday, Congress has planned a vigorous campaign against PM Narendra Modi, named “Bihar Virodhi — Narendra Modi” that includes demonstrations and public meetings at all block, district and state levels.
The outcome of the crucial Bihar legislative council polls in which the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and an independent backed by it have won 13 out of 24 seats has prompted the Congress to launch an offensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his upcoming visits to the election-bound state.
Coming ahead of Modi’s July 25 visit to the state, the first such attack will see the Congress kick off on Saturday a fortnight long campaign to highlight the BJP-led NDA government’s “anti-Bihar policies”.
Named “Bihar Virodhi — Narendra Modi”, the Congress campaign includes demonstrations and public meetings at all block, district and state levels to underscore the “severe budgetary cuts” in central schemes for social sector projects in the state after the BJP came to power at the Centre in May last year.
“Modi has completely failed in keeping his three election promises of granting special status to Bihar, second, providing a special financial assistance and making Bihar the number one state in the country,” Bihar Congress chief Ashok Choudhary told HT. The Congress strategy will be replicated in other election-bound states as well.
Though results of the council polls are not encouraging for the ruling Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, alliance leaders believe that the outcome cannot be a true reflection of the ground realities. The electoral college of the council polls, they say, cannot be compared to large number of voters in assembly constituencies.
While the Congress won one of the three seats it contested, the party is hopeful that the “secular” alliance will produce substantially better performance in October-November assembly elections in view of changing political realties and also with the BJP on the back-foot over a series of scams in states ruled by it.
