JOIN USThe six explosions in the vicinity of the Gandhi Maidan sent a wave of panic among the followers of Narendra Modi who seemed to scramble initially, but they soon overcame fear as their zeal to listen to the Gujarat strongmen made them stand their ground.
Earlier, forty five minutes before Narendra Modi arrived on the scene and climbed the dais, Krishna Kumar, a 20-year-old student, heard a loud explosion at the eastern corner of Gandhi Maidan.
Initially, he thought a tyre of a parked vehicle had burst. But within seconds, he realised that an improved explosive device has exploded just 50 metres away from where he was standing, near the Mahatma Gandhi statue.
This was the fourth explosion in a series of blasts since morning. He sought the help of police, who called an ambulance to provide assistance to the injured.
Time, however, was running out as the ambulance had to move in a crowded area. The young lad from Saidpur took his two-wheeler and, with the help of one of his friends, rushed the critically injured victims to the PMCH.
At the Gandhi Maidan, panic gripped the people for a while when the seventh explosion took place near the Children’s Park. The blast site was hardly 100 metres away from the dais.
On the dais, Modi remained the star attraction. The Patna Sahib MP and BJP’s star campaigner Shatrughan Sinha was, however, not asked to address the gathering. He merely exchanged pleasantries with Modi, who patted him after Shotgun presented him an “angvastram”.
Notwithstanding the blasts, the BJP workers did not forget to provide food packets to the rallyists. The ruling JD-U charged that crores of rupees were being spent by the saffron party to make the rally a success, but Bihar BJP chief Mangal Pandey said, “If needed, we will furnish all rally expenses to the Income Tax Department.”