'Cong, RJD plan to relive dark days'

Nitish recalls Bihar's state when two old partners were last in power

Amid indications of Congress forming alliance with the RJD for the next general elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday said the two old partners were coming together again to bring back the “dark” days of poor law and order and misgovernance.

“Who does not know that the RJD and the Congress shared power in those days when people feared to venture out of home after sunset to avoid getting kidnapped?”  Kumar said during JD(U)’s ‘Sankalp Rally’ here, about 60 km from Patna.

“Both (RJD and Congress) are equally responsible for ‘badhali’ (bad condition) of Bihar for 15 years,” he said, slamming the two parties for their efforts to form alliance for the next Lok Sabha polls.

“Efforts are being made to revive the ties to bring back those dark days of poor law and order and misgovernance,” he said. 

The chief minister said after assuming power for the first time in November 25, 2005, he had worked day and night to bring the state back on track in the past eight years.“Rule of law has been established and people no longer fear to go out of home even late in night. 

Development work has been taken up,” Nitish Kumar said, asking people if they would like to return to “the bad days of the past”.

Saturday’s rally is third in the series of 12 such rallies planned by the JD(U) to make a commitment before people to continue the fight for winning special category status for the state and not allowing communal forces to triumph.

Making a scathing attack at his rival and RJD chief Lalu Prasad, he said the fanfare with which he returned to Patna from Ranchi prison after bail in a fodder scam case made it seem like he had gone to jail for participating in some “freedom movement”.

Referring to Lalu Prasad blaming him for being sent to jail, Kumar said, “The CBI is probing into the fodder scam and the court sent him to jail earlier and gave him bail recently. Where do I figure in this process?”.

“Despite submission of report of Raghuram Rajan panel which put Bihar in the category of least developed state, the Centre has not acted subsequently,” he said. 

“Delhi is thinking that we have gone lethargic on the issue. But, they are mistaken,” he said and appealed to the people to support his party so that no party or alliance at the Centre could ignore Bihar.