Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who spoke for close to 30 minutes in his Bihar rally on Saturday charged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad of pursuing "appeasement politics" through measures like cuts in holidays of government schools.
Shah at the rally in Jhanjharpur parliamentary constituency also warned that if PM Modi was not voted back to power, Bihar's areas close to the borders (seemant) will become "infested with infiltrators"
What did Amit Shah say?
"I would like to congratulate the people of Bihar for putting up a resistance that forced the state government to withdraw its order whereby holidays on Rakshabandhan, the festival of brothers and sisters, and Janmashtami, devoted to Lord Krishna, were done away with," said Shah.
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"If the Lalu-Nitish duo (jodi) returns to power in Bihar and Narendra Modi does not come back as Prime Minister, the entire region will become infested with infiltrators (saara seemant kshetra ghuspaithiyon se bhar jaaega)", said Shah.
"In such a situation, many types of issues will arise in Bihar (anek prakaar ke sawaal khade honge). Do you want the area to be teeming with infiltrators," the home minister asked.
He, however, exuded confidence that the BJP-led NDA, which performed well in Bihar in the last couple of Lok Sabha polls, will win "all 40 seats" of the state in 2024.
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Shah also slammed the INDIA coalition for the alleged denigration of "Sanatana Dharma" and claimed that the Congress-led coalition did away with the previous name "UPA" because it had been associated with "scams involving Rs 12 lakh crore".
"Some of the scams involved Lalu Prasad, who was then the railway minister, to which Nitish Kumar is now turning a blind eye for the sake of his prime ministerial ambitions", alleged Shah.
"But Nitish should know there is no vacancy for the post of the prime minister. His alliance with Lalu is like trying to mix oil with water. The oil does not get dissolved, but water gets contaminated", Shah remarked.
Nitish Kumar's response
When asked for his opinion on Amit Shah's JD(U)-RJD allianceremarks, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said, "There is no need to pay attention to what they (Amit Shah) say. They do not know anything. These people are rattled as we are uniting political parties."
In context of boycotting 14 news anchors, a decision unanimously taken by the INDIA bloc, Kumar said "We are in support of the journalists. There cannot be any control over them. We are not against anybody",Kumar added later over the INDIA alliance boycotting shows of fourteen TV news anchors."
