NEW DELHI: With the Bihar elections drawing closer, the BJP on Monday claimed that its campaign had reached every nook and corner of the state and said the party would start the second round of canvassing on Wednesday.The first round of the campaign focused on the “misgovernance” of Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) Government and the second phase would focus on hard selling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rs 1,25,000-crore package for Bihar and the BJP’s vision for the state.
“The BJP, through its over 200 raths, reached all the 43,000 villages. Posters and banners have been put up in all the villages. Small meetings with 150-200 people were held. That phase got over last week,” a BJP leader said.
In the next phase, raths will carry the message of the special package and the BJP’s vision. The raths will have LCD TVs showing publicity videos and messages. Until last week, the campaign raths had showed clips of Nitish and RJD chief Lalu attacking each other before they forged an alliance.
In the first phase, Modi was to hold four rallies, the last of which will take place in Bhagalpur on September 1. In the next round, the BJP leaders will address rallies in all the nine commisionerates of the state, and then go to all the 243 constituencies.
BJP sources said the situation had changed after the recent Modi rallies. “The situation is different from what it was over a month ago,” a party functionary said.
They said the BJP was waiting for the Election Commission’s announcement of the poll dates to begin candidate selection and announce the NDA’s seat-sharing plan. As for the discordant voices in the saffron camp, like those of party MP Shatrughan Sinha who had hailed Nitish, sources said any decision on the issue would be taken after the election results.
Separately, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan urged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to probe last week’s incident in which BJP chief along with some of the party top brass had got stuck inside a lift at the government guesthouse in Patna.