A combative Narendra Modi on Tuesday challenged the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance for a report card on its combined 25 years in power in Bihar, raising the stakes in the high-pitch poll battle in a state considered crucial for the NDA
Elections for Bihar’s 243-member assembly seats are due later this year and Tuesday’s rally in communally sensitive Bhagalpur was the Prime Minister’s fourth in a series of campaign meetings in the state.
Modi has of late stepped up his attack on the recently-finalised grand alliance comprising the ruling Janata Dal (United), Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, all three coming together to fight the assembly polls jointly with the avowed goal of defeating the BJP.
“I was elected in 2014 to Parliament but they are asking me the reasons for Bihar’s plight. I will place a report card before the people when I go to them again in 2019 on how I ruled (at) the Centre. Every paisa spent will be accounted for, also, each minute utilised by my government. All the hows and whys of my rule as PM will be answered then,” Modi told a well-attended rally held at an abandoned airfield dating back to World War II.
He then put a question to the Nitish-Lalu combine, “But tell me, is the grand alliance ready to tell the people, how it utilised the last 25 years in power and achieved what in that time span?”
Bhagalpur, where communal riots had left more than 1,000 people dead in 1989, is around 300 km east of capital Patna.