PATNA: Ahead of the second phase of the Bihar assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the people of Bihar “do not want a katta sarkaar”.
“I shudder to hear that the RJD, in its campaign, is getting children to say that they wish to become ‘rangdaar’ (street bully) when they grow up,” he said at a poll rally in Sitamarhi. “People do not want a regime that would put a ‘katta’ on their heads and ask them to hold their hands up. People do not want hands up, but startup, which the NDA will facilitate. The NDA shuns ‘katta’ and promotes school bags, computers, cricket bats and hockey sticks,” he added.
The Prime Minister, who has popularised “katta” as a metaphor for the RJD’s alleged high-handedness, charged the main opposition party with having pointed a country-made, unlicensed pistol at the head of the Congress when the ally was refusing to back Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate.
Speaking on record voter turnout in the first phase of the assembly election, Modi said that it was like a “65-volt jhatka” to ‘jungle raj’. “They are getting sleepless nights,” he added, asserting that people of Bihar have sent a strong message against corruption, misgovernance, and lawlessness that once plagued the state.
The PM launched a veiled attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his recent fishing attempt in Begusarai during his election trail by stating that “Bihar ki election mein doobne ki practice kar rahe hain”. He said that some people were practising diving in ponds in the state at a time when Bihar’s fishery sector had grown under the NDA government. PM Modi in his election rallies had several times pointed out how Bihar’s fish farming had grown after the installation of the NDA government as earlier Bihar had to depend on other states for fish but now it was supplying fish to them.
Along with Rahul Gandhi, VIP chief Mukesh Sahani, who has a good support base among fishing community, also participated in the fish-catching exercise. Mallah community constitutes 2.6% of Bihar’s population as per the 2023 caste survey.
In Bettiah (district headquarters of West Champaran), Modi claimed that Bettiah had witnessed the most “terrifying form of RJD and Congress’s jungle raj”.
“These jungle raj politicians have turned Champaran, once known for its history of Satyagraha, into a stronghold for thugs and bandits,” he said.
“I had started my campaign by visiting the birthplace of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur, and today I am bringing it to a close at the land where Bapu Gandhi transformed into the Mahatma,” said Modi, recalling his first rally at Samastipur.
“My campaign ends today but canvassing will continue tomorrow. But voters’ job begins on the day of polling. I will come again for the swearing-in of an NDA government,” the Prime Minister said.