This election is a fight between two ideologies: RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav

See, the 2014 general election was marked with big promises — ₹ 15 lakh in everybody’s account, employment for 2 crore youth annually, farmers’ income to be doubled, smart cities, cleaning of river Ganga and many more announcements. We observed the performance of Narendra Modi’s government for five years. No promise was fulfilled.

The reality is that GDP is down, the economy is in a bad shape. They said the nation will get strength, but the fact is the nation is much weaker now. This election, the relevant issues — development, especially for the poor section of our society — are not being talked about.

Where is employment? We studied some surveys and found that 1.5 crore people lost their jobs in 2018. Problems of terrorism, naxal attacks, stone pelting and black money are still there. We maintained that demonetisation will be destructive and now the truth is before all of us. This government ignored opinions of noted economists and forced demonetisation, and see it resulted in a job loss of 3.5 crore. Together with 2018, the total job loss is 5 crore. Don’t forget Modi’s promise of 2 crore a year which means 10 crore in five years. All these mean he took away 15 crore jobs.

Farmers from all over the country assembled in Delhi and pleaded with the PM for an audience to explain their woes but had no luck. If farmers are not strong, how will our nation become strong? Farmers are committing suicide. There is no nationwide debt waiver.

Modi ki baat jyada ho rahi hai, muddo ki nahi (Modi is being talked about more, issues are not being discussed). That is why we always appeal in election rallies to talk more about issues than Modi. What is Modi talking about, temple-mosque, Hindu-Muslim, Pakistan-Kashmir and now the new addition is Pulwama. He wants to take credit for the army. Army should not be politicised. At the time of the unfortunate incident of Pulwama, we supported Modi and unanimously agreed that a befitting reply should be given. We also said the army should retaliate in its own way.

Media should not highlight such statements. We do not support foul language and no leader should do that. Sometimes when such statements are hotly debated in media, others think that this is the easy way to get publicity.

This is a fight between two ideologies. Modi is not alone. He has an alliance with 35-40 parties. Take for example Bihar; Nitish Kumar (JD-U) and Ram Vilas Paswan (LJP) have an alliance with the BJP. Alliance here is with him, it is with ‘ Paltu Chacha ’ and he used to say BJP means ‘ Badka Jhoota Party (big liar) ’ and Modi used to say ‘DNA kharab hai’ (DNA is bad). This is opportunism (BJP and JD-U alliance).

When GST was being introduced, it was said that consumer States such as Bihar would be in an advantageous position. We also need to understand the so called benefits from GST, demonetisation.

Who will answer all these? The person who is supposed to answer, is silent on these issues. In other words whatever was expected out of GST has not happened.

Now, the formula for GDP has been reworked. All these indicate that things are being manipulated.

I cannot say about these agencies but I can talk about what I see on the ground. And the fact is that I am not seeing any thing on the ground.

We have already seen what the PM says and what he does. Now, it would be foolishness to trust what he says. I feel NYAY is much more than a political issue. It will help Bihar. We all know that Bihar is a backward State with more poor people and unemployed youth. We need to understand that people belonging to the Dalit, SC, ST or extreme backward class will be benefited most through ‘NYAY.’

There are resources. It can be managed. The Congress must have researched about it and prepared a blueprint. When Rahul Gandhi announced about debt waiver for farmers in some States before the Assembly polls, everybody questioned it. But see, the ruling Congress managed to implement debt waiver in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and earlier the same thing happened in Karnataka and Punjab. We should trust Rahul Gandhi and his proposal. Also, we should not question such a move meant for poor. They should be helped by all means.

People used to say what will happen as Laluji is in jail. See the by-election results — the RJD won all the seats it contested. Nitish Kumar joined hands with the BJP before the by-poll. People of Bihar are angry as the State did not get the special package. During the election campaign in 2014, PM... promised ₹1.25 lakh core package. Nobody knows what happened to that package. On the one hand, Bihar did not get special State status and on the other hand it was burdened by higher sharing in various schemes. If the liquor ban affected the revenue here, it also created a black market for alcohol. Here we have a twin-engine government (same alliance in State as well at Centre), but it has not delivered anything.

And now, nobody can predict Nitish Kumar’s next move, will he continue with the present mechanism or change stance.

I don’t want to predict how many seats we will win but I can am confident we will be in a very good position. For the latest on elections, click: Elections 2019

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