Bihar Elections: On Ambedkar’s birth anniv BJP to launch poll campaign today
PATNA: I
n an attempt to woo the Dalit voters, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will on Tuesday launch its poll campaign in poll-bound Bihar for the Assembly Elections to be held later this year.
According to reports, BJP president Amit Shah and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh would formally launch the election campaign during a party workers convention. They are also scheduled to address party workers, being drawn from over 62,000 booths across the state.
The senior leaders are also scheduled to hold a rally in Patna. The aim of the rally —strategically positioned to woo Dalits and Mahadalits who play a key role in the caste-divided politics of Bihar — is multi-fold.
The show of strength is meant to mobilise cadres and act as their morale-booster to take on the formidable and resurgent Nitish Kumar-Lalu Yadav duo, who along with the Congress, are giving sleepless times to the local leadership.
Senior BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said as the event was being organised on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, the workers will take a pledge to avenge the ‘insult’ to former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, a mahadalit, allegedly by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD President Lalu Prasad.
Reacting to Nitish Kumar’s remark that BJP has nothing to do with Ambedkar, Sushil Kumar Modi said “A large number of people are seen at Manjhi’s public rally. I don’t know whether BJP will get their votes in the polls, but they will certainly teach Kumar a lesson as to who is a follower of Ambedkar.”
Sushil Kumar Modi, former deputy CM and BJP legislature party leader, said the meeting would give a clear direction to the party workers for the elections and also send a message among the people that JD(U) and RJD — the parties which soon be merging with four other Janata Parivar outfits in a bid to stop BJP from coming to power in the state — do not want development of Bihar.
BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party expects at least 1.5 lakh booth level workers to attend the political meeting at Gandhi Maidan here. “Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh will give a clarion call to workers to send across the message of betrayal of the 2010 mandate by Nitish Kumar,” said Pandey.
