Sonia Gandhi, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad share stage at a rally in Patna.
“The rollback of the anti-farmer land bill is not PM Modi’s Mann ki Baat, it is the nation’s Mann ki Baat,” Mr Kumar said, referring to PM Modi’s comments this morning on his monthly radio programme. “Tomorrow the land bill will lapse and I have agreed to it,” the Prime Minister had said.
Calling the Modi government “anti-farmer” Mrs Gandhi, who addressed the rally before Mr Kumar, said. “It snatches land from farmers to divide it among its handful of rich cronies”.
“The government had to bow down to us after what they saw we did… The Modi sarkar has finished one fourth of its time but they have done nothing other than showbaazi,” she added.
The two leaders were sharing stage today with RJD chief Lalu Prasad at a rally attended by tens of thousands of people.
Billed the “Swabhiman rally” (self-respect rally) the gathering was the first big show of unity after Mr Kumar and Mr Prasad joined hands last year to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the coming assembly elections.
Not unexpectedly, PM Modi’s earlier dig about Nitish Kumar’s political DNA came in for much criticism. “Some people constantly run down Bihar, make fun of its culture, find flaws in its DNA, call it bimaru,” Mrs Gandhi said.
“This is the place from where Gautam Buddha, Mahavir and Aryabhatta were from… This is where the where the Indian flag, the Ashot Chakra, came from… My DNA is the same DNA,” Mr Kumar said.
The JD(U) and the RJD will contest 100 seats each in the 243-member Bihar Assembly elections, scheduled to end by November.
The Congress will contest on 40 seats, the remaining three will be contested by Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party.
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