Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Sunday dismissed the NDA’s Sankalp rally held by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Bihar’s ruling party, Janata Dal (United), in Patna. Yadav claimed that there had been a low turnout at the prime minister’s rally.
“Narendra Modi, [Chief Minister] Nitish Kumar and [Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas] Paswan used the government machinery at their disposal to draw crowds to Gandhi Maidan, but managed to get only the numbers that come to meet me when I stop my vehicle at a paan shop,” Yadav’s office tweeted from his official handle.
He also suggested that the organisers at the rally had used magnified images and optics to show that a large crowd was present at the rally.
Yadav, who is serving sentences in fodder scam cases, is currently in Ranchi hospital for treatment.
At the rally, Modi took a dig at Yadav when he said: “Everyone knows what happened in Bihar in the name of fodder. Those who were making money by exploiting the poor and the middle class are now worried about this ‘chowkidaar’ and are hence opposed to me.”
The NDA Sankalp rally comes a month after the Congress held a Jan Akanksh rally at the same venue. This was the first time since 2009 that Modi and Nitish Kumar have shared a stage and the first joint rally by the National Democratic Alliance since November 2005, reported NDTV. Modi had last addressed a rally at Gandhi Maidan in October 2013, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election.
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