Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a whopping Rs. 1.25 lakh crore package for Bihar on Tuesday in Ara, he launched a blistering attack on his political rivals Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad at Saharsha in the north-eastern part of Bihar. While making a reference to the Kosi flood deluge he slammed Mr. Kumar for being “arrogant” and cited crime figures to warn people that “jungle raj” had returned in the State.
“Seven years back there was a massive flood that hit Kosi area affecting 35 lakh families, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural field and damaging thousands of homes. As Gujarat Chief Minister I gave Rs. 5 crore to Bihar in which the people of Bihar living in Gujarat too had contributed but Mr. Kumar returned the money out of sheer arrogance,” said Mr. Modi.
“Such arrogance hurt people…in public life there should be no place for such things…there must be policies, morality in public life,” he said.
Meet with scribesTaking a dig at Mr. Kumar’s recent meeting with a select group of journalists for getting “feedback” on his governance, Mr. Modi said, “He interacts with 20-25 journalists in an air-conditioned room to get their views but I prefer to come to you directly for interaction as I am only accountable to the people.”
Reading out the Bihar government’s crime statistics for the last six months, he said there was a 34 per cent increase in heinous crime within six months — 13,808 in January to 18,500 in June.
“Similarly, in January, 217 murders took place in Bihar which rose to 316 in June, almost a 46 per cent increase in the last six months; the number of incidents of riots in January was 866 which took an almost 72 per cent jump in the last six months to 1497,” he said. “Tell me, is this not the indication of the return of jungle raj?...if this is not jungle raj, then what is,” he asked.
Mr. Modi also criticised Mr. Kumar and Mr. Prasad for allying with the Congress.
“It was the Congress government which had sent the late Jayprakash Narayan to jail which eventually led to his death. And, today for the sake of power they [Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad] have made an alliance with the same Congress party.”
The Prime Minister also assailed the previous UPA government for not visiting Nepal in the last 17 years while he went there in 17 months for the sake of the people of Kosi and “to discuss modalities on the flood issue.”
