The standoff between the BJP and the Grand Secular Alliance deepened further on Wednesday when BJP senior leader and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley mounted a concerted attack against his opponent
The standoff between the BJP and the Grand Secular Alliance deepened further on Wednesday when BJP senior leader and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley mounted a concerted attack against his opponent by terming the formation of an alliance between the JD(U), RJD and the Congress as “an alliance of desperate people”.
Mr Jaitley, camping in Patna and assisting BJP national president Amit Shah monitoring and drawing strategies for the party, made these remarks before he left for New Delhi on Thursday. Claiming that the NDA has performed well in the three rounds of polling in Bihar, he said he expected same enthusiasm from the masses for the two remaining phases scheduled to be held on November 1 and November 5. “People’s desire for change and development will lead us to victory and this reflects from the Prime Minister’s rallies, where turnout is massive. He is one of the key factors for the NDA to get two-thirds majority,” Mr Jaitley said addressing a press meet in Patna on Thursday.
Dismissing accusations by Mr Nitish Kumar that Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed in his promises to grant special status to Bihar, he said it is no longer relevant after the constitutional award by the 14 finance commission for sharing of tax resources between the Centre and the states.
“We will give what Bihar needs. The Prime Minister has already announced a development package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore with an additional package of Rs 40,000 crores which will benefit Bihar in the future,” Mr Jaitley said.
Refuting claims of the Congress and other secular alliance parties that there was intolerance in the country after the BJP came to power he said “Such allegations are baseless as there was normalcy everywhere in the country.”
He also slammed writers and other personalities who were returning their awards calling them “anti-BJP” saying that “even some of them had gone to Varanasi to campaign against Narendra Modi during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and the same elements are now electioneering against the BJP in the Bihar polls.”
