A confident Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Sunday said that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav would be swept away by the tsunami of the saffron party as the people of Bihar no longer wish to remain under 'jungle raj'.
"Nitish and Lalu have ruled Bihar for 25 years that has left the state far behind, while the BJP-ruled states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir bear a different picture. Jharkhand was at the 29th place in the development index, but when the BJP took over its reign the state came to the third spot in just one year," claimed Shah while addressing an election rally here.
"For 15 years, during the reign of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, there was 'jungle raj' in Bihar. The common man has not forgotten the atrocities they were subjected to during Lalu's reign. The period was marked by crimes such as abduction, ransom, murder, murder, etc," said Shah.
However, when Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister, he started dreaming of becoming the Prime Minister, said Shah, adding that though Nitish could not become the PM, he would no longer remain as the Bihar CM as well.
More than 1.35 crore voters will decide the fate of 583 candidates for the 49 seats in the first phase of the Bihar elections on Monday by casting their votes at 12,686 polling stations spread over 10 districts.
The first phase is important for the JD (U) as out of the 49 seats, it had won 29 in the 2010 elections, while its alliance partner BJP had won 13, and the RJD four.