With the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections in mind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the face of NDA, adding that the JD(U) chief had played “a big role for a new India and a new Bihar”.
The prime minister’s endorsement came while dedicating to the nation three petroleum sector projects in poll-bound Bihar worth around Rs 900 crore via video conferencing on Sunday.
Modi inaugurated the 193 km extension of the LPG pipeline from Durgapur in West Bengal to Banka in Bihar, and two LPG bottling plants in Banka and in East Champaran’s Harsiddhi.
The prime minister also praised Nitish Kumar for ushering in sushasan (good governance), reaffirming confidence in the CM and his leadership.
“Bihar had fallen behind in terms of development for years. There was a time when road connectivity, internet connectivity were not discussed. Bihar has faced many challenges as a landlocked state. And Nitish Kumar has played a big role in our aim towards a New India, New Bihar,” PM Modi said.
“But the last 15 years have been of sushasan. Infrastructure has improved. New medical and engineering colleges, law institutes and polytechnics have come up. Nitish Kumar has a very important role to play in ensuring that the process continues,” he said.
In 2013, the Bihar CM had ended the alliance with the BJP when Modi was named the prime ministerial candidate of the NDA. The two were in a bitter tussle for power during the 2015 state assembly elections.
However, Nitish Kumar patched things up with the BJP in 2017 after it ended the Mahagathbandhan or the ‘Grand Alliance’ with the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal.
In a veiled dig at former CM and RJD chief Yadav, Modi said that a peculiar mindset promoted by the state’s leaders from before is the cause of its backwardness. This mindset made these leaders sneer at economic progress, making them believe that lip-service was enough for betterment of the poor.
Referring to the coronavirus pandemic and the large-scale return of migrants that took place during lockdown, Bihar accounting for a large part of them, Modi said, “This crisis has also presented us with opportunities. We can think of new employment generation avenues by setting in motion rapid economic activity.”
(With PTI inputs)
