Samastipur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the first phase of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) election campaign in Bihar on Friday with what is being referred as demonstration of political hierarchy, publicly intervening to reinforce Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s leadership on stage while simultaneously containing the ambitions of junior alliance partner Chirag Paswan.
The moment of drama occurred in Samastipur as the stage announcer called upon Union Minister Chirag Paswan to address the massive crowd. PM Modi, without hesitation, pointed across the stage to the Chief Minister, declaring: “Nitish, not Chirag, will be speaking.” The announcer immediately reversed course, calling Nitish to the podium.
The Digital Light Show
Aside from the political theatrics, the Prime Minister deployed striking visual imagery to frame the election as a battle between modernity and stagnation. At both the Begusarai and Samastipur rallies, Modi asked the crowds to turn on their mobile phone flashlights, instantly bathing the rally grounds in thousands of digital points of light.
“Do you need a lantern even in such light?” he challenged, using the spectacle to launch a direct symbolic attack on the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) ‘lantern’ election symbol and its perceived association with a period of ‘jungle raj’.
PM Modi connected this imagery directly to his government’s policy successes, stating that under the previous Congress regime, mobile phones were expensive imports and only two manufacturing factories existed. Today, he asserted, the country boasts over 200 factories, and data is now “cheaper” under the NDA government.
He praised this digital shift for creating a new creative economy, noting that young people in Bihar are earning money through content creation platforms like ‘Reels’—a phenomenon he attributed to the policies of connectivity and affordability delivered by the NDA.
The campaign launch also included local touches designed to connect with the state’s cultural identity. In Begusarai, the Prime Minister distributed prasad (soup) to Chhath devotees on stage and paid tribute to the legendary folk singer Sharda Sinha. Even a brief moment of logistical disarray, when Union Minister Giriraj Singh took the microphone to ask for stage lights to be turned on, failed to disrupt the focused message of the campaign.
