Nawada: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday asserted that the youth have resolved to remove the “old and rickety” NDA government in the state, and make Congress leader Rahul Gandhi the prime minister after the next Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a rally on the third day of Congress’ ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Nawada, Tejashwi Yadav also said the time has come for the young generation to get a chance to run the state.
The RJD leader described Gandhi as the one “who has given sleepless nights to Prime Minister Narendra Modi” for undertaking the state-wide yatra.
“In the upcoming assembly polls, we shall root out the NDA, which has been running a government comparable to a rickety old car (‘khatara’) for the last 20 years. And, in the next Lok Sabha polls, we shall make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister,” said Yadav, evoking cheers from the crowd.
Donning a baseball cap and a T-shirt, Yadav also had a ‘gamcha’ wrapped around his neck, in an apparent bid to stress that he wished to embody a mix of tradition with modernity.
“We have a vision for a new Bihar,” asserted the former deputy chief minister, who spoke into a hand-held mic, from atop an open vehicle that carried him, Gandhi, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Vikassheel Insan Party president Mukesh Sahni and state Congress chief Rajesh Kumar.
Bihar CM has lost his senses: Tejashwi
Taking potshots at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, said, “The CM is not in his senses. He is not able to run Bihar. His government has become a copycat. I had promised free power, domicile policy, hike in social security pensions and setting up of a Youth Commission.
“The state government presented these as newly devised schemes. It has remained oblivious to the state’s crying need for better education, health, employment, irrigation facilities and accountability.”
Training his guns at the BJP, Yadav said “they have colluded with the Election Commission to deprive the people of Bihar of their right to vote”.
Many people who are alive, who had voted in the last Lok Sabha polls, have been declared as dead and their names are being deleted from the electoral rolls, he claimed.
Yadav reiterated that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar was an exercise to “snatch” people’s right to vote.
“The SIR is dacoity of votes and we will not allow that to happen. It’s a conspiracy of the ruling dispensation to disenfranchise voters in Bihar,” he alleged.
“The BJP and the EC think they can take the people of Bihar for a ride. But, they need to know that in Bihar, we mix lime with khaini (raw tobacco) and swallow it without a fuss. We are Biharis. And as the saying goes, a Bihari can take on anybody,” the 35-year-old RJD leader said.
The yatra, which will also pass through Nalanda, Sheikhpura, Lakhisarai, Munger, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Purnea, Araria, Supaul, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, East Champaran, West Champaran, Gopalganj, Siwan, Chhapra and Ara, is scheduled to conclude with a rally in Patna on September 1.
