While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is preparing big for the September 23-24 rallies of union home minister Amit Shah in Bihar’s Seemanchal region, which has a high concentration of Muslim population, the state’s ruling Grand Alliance (GA) has decided to counter it soon after with rallies comprising all its constituents.
“We will decide dates after discussing it with all the parties in the GA. They all seem to be ready for it, as they view Shah’s rally as an attempt to fan communal tension in the sensitive region. We will do the rallies in Purnia, Kishanganj and Katihar to apply the balm for social harmony, which Bihar has been known for under the Nitish Kumar’s regime,” said Janata Dal-United (JD-U) president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh.
Deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who is from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the largest constituent of the ruling alliance, is learnt to have given his nod to the proposal.
Singh said the choice of Seemanchal for Shah’s rallies was a clear indication of BJP’s motive.
Bihar remains the only state in the Hindi belt where BJP has failed to make a government on its own, as it did in the neighbouring Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Ahead of Shah’s visit to Bihar on September 23, 2024, union minister Smriti Irani visited the state on Sunday in connection with the launch of a book “Modi@20” in Patna and mocked at Nitish Kumar’s “ambition to be a PM candidate”.
Bihar BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal said that Shah’s visit was part of BJP’s regular outreach programmes and there was no need for the JD-U or the GA to be so hyper about it. “The programmes in the Seemanchal were planned long ago. JD-U is panicky as it has to be due to the situation it has put itself in due to the personal ambition of Nitish Kumar. It has to dance to RJD tunes now and Lalan Singh is venting his frustration on the BJP,” he said.
BJP claims to have set its eyes on 35 out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats on its own in 2024 parliamentary polls. In 2019, the BJP fought in alliance with JD-U and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP and won 17 seats. CM Kumar’s JD-U won 16 while LJP won six.
However, equations completely changed last month when JD-U snapped ties with BJP and formed a new government in Bihar in alliance with RJD, Congress and other parties.
Understandably, top BJP leaders,including Shah’s deputy Nityanand Rai, have been camping in Seemanchal for over a fortnight.
