Araria: As voting began for the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a public rally in Araria, beginning his speech in Maithili to connect with the local crowd.
“The only voice echoing across Bihar today is — NDA government once again,” he declared, as visuals of long queues at polling stations surfaced on social media.
The Prime Minister accused the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress of having “destroyed the future of an entire generation” during their years in power. “For a developed India, Bihar must develop. But RJD and Congress can never make Bihar developed,” he said.
PM Modi credited the NDA’s double-engine government, formed in 2014, with accelerating Bihar’s development, citing key infrastructure and education projects: “An IIT in Patna, an IIM in Bodh Gaya, an AIIMS in Patna, another under construction in Darbhanga, and an IIIT in Bhagalpur. Bihar today has not one, but four central universities. Four grand bridges over the Ganges have been completed under the NDA government.”
Interacting with the crowd, PM Modi light-heartedly asked, “You have come here in such large numbers so early in the morning — did your family get food today? Or did you wake up at 4 am to cook?”
The Prime Minister contrasted this with what he called the “era of betrayal” under the RJD-Congress rule. “Where violence and cruelty reign, law fails. Where there is corruption, there can be no social justice. Such people can never do any good for Bihar,” he said, warning that “those who promoted bitterness” could not bring social harmony or prosperity.
The rally in Araria marked one of several high-profile campaign events by PM Modi across Bihar as polling continued in 121 constituencies in the first phase of the elections.
