Modi urges J'khand to vote for stability

Battle for states: Saffron party calls for an end to dynasty rule

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked the people of Jharkhand to repose the kind of confidence they had shown towards the BJP during Lok Sabha elections and vote for a stable government with absolute majority in the state.

It was only his party which could make rapid strides in terms of growth and development, he emphasised.

“Jharkhand to bahut amir hai, par yahan ke log bahut garib hai, aur bhrasht neta bahut amir hai. (Jharkhand is rich in mineral resources but the local people have remained poor over the years while the corrupt politicians have prospered and become rich),” said Modi in his maiden rally at Jharkhand’s Palamu and Latehar districts.

“It’s time you end the dynasty rule here,” Modi, the BJP’s star campaigner, said in an apparent reference to former chief minister Shibu Soren and his son Hemant Soren (the present chief minister). “These two tribal leaders have no pills for Jharkhand’s ills,” he added.

The BJP mascot campaigned for his party nominees in Daltonganj and then addressed an impressive rally at Chandwa in Latehar.

Altogether 13 Assembly constituencies, out of the total 81 seats, will go to polls in the first phase on November 25, for which the campaigning ends on Sunday.

Modi, visibly tired after his 10-day-long foreign tour, reached Ranchi’s Birsa Munda airport from where he  flew down to Chiyanki (near Daltonganj in Palamu). All the nine BJP nominees from different constituencies in Palamu, Garhwa, Chatra, Latehar, Gumla and Lohardagga districts were present during Modi’s address.

Besides making a scathing attack on father-son duo, Modi asked the youths of Jharkhand to shun Maoism and join the mainstream. “The state can prosper if you give the BJP a full majority. ‘Sampoorna bahumat, sampoorna vikas’ (Absolute majority and full development). Only a BJP government will usher in growth and development in Jharkhand,” said Modi, oblivious of the fact that in the last 14 years (since Jharkhand was created in November 2000), the BJP has ruled the state for nine, albeit heading a coalition government.