Former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and senior BJP leader Sushil Modi on Monday said that there was no confusion in the minds of the voters of Bihar between the achievements of the NDA during its rule of seven years in the State and 25 months of “political manoeuvring” by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, after he split with the BJP.
“There is a stark difference in the way the State was under the joint NDA rule, and the 25 months that Mr. Nitish Kumar has been in power,” he said. “From law and order to development works, everything has seen a decline.”
Mr. Modi was in Delhi as part of the team putting together the NDA’s >seat-sharing arrangement announced on Monday by BJP president Amit Shah.
He said tickets for the first two phases of the polls, on October 12 and 16, were likely to be cleared at the party’s Central Election Committee meeting on Tuesday.
'Young candidates will dominate BJP list'
Mr. Modi said most of the tickets given by the BJP were likely to go to young candidates, keeping in mind that 56 per cent of the people in the State were aged 18-40, and most district presidents of the party were below 50 years of age.
“Our State unit chief Mangal Pandey is only 45 years old. There are very few people who have grey hair like me [laughs] in the State unit now,” said Mr. Modi.
“That is a demographic which will define this election. The young want sync between the Centre and the State for development and they are willing to give the BJP a chance after having tried out both the RJD and the Janata Dal (U),” Mr. Modi said.
When it was pointed out that the grand alliance of these parties had a formidable caste arithmetic on its side, he countered: “How is it formidable? The EBCs [Extremely Backward Classes] and the OBCs [Other Backward Classes] are not exactly categories who are on the same side. So, how will the EBCs vote for Nitish Kumar when he has tied up with Lalu Prasad?”
Mr. Modi said that of the two leaders, Lalu Prasad is the stronger one. “But the propaganda that all Yadavs are going to vote for him is not correct,” he said.
