Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar (Photo Credit: PTI)
New Delhi:
Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar on Sunday asserted that his party will contest Bihar Assembly Elections 2020 with NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and win more than 200 seats. Kumar said this while addressing a ‘Karykarta Sammelan’ at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on the occasion of his 69th birthday. Kumar exhorted JDU workers to strive towards ensuring the NDA’s win in 243-member Bihar assembly. Disapproving of political ‘controversies’ around the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the chief minister called for ‘patience’ as the matter was sub judice. Kumar’s JDU had supported the CAA in the Parliament.
“Anxieties in some sections of society, particularly among the minorities, have been addressed with a resolution passed by the Bihar assembly against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and insertion of contentious clauses in National Population Register (NPR) forms,” he said.
Kumar also reiterated his commitment towards ensuring justice and welfare of all, including minorities, and slammed the opposition Congress-RJD combine, which keeps attacking him over his alliance with the BJP, by recalling the Bhagalpur riots of 1989 that had claimed over 1,000 lives.
“It is well known who was in power when the riots took place and how justice eluded the victims for 15 years thereafter. We brought the guilty to book and justice was ensured to the victims. I am more concerned about working for the minorities than getting their votes,” said Kumar as he highlighted the various schemes being run by his government for minority communities.
Reacting to allegations of deterioration in law and order leveled by opposition parties, the Bihar chief minister quoted National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics to suggest that the crime rate in the state was among the lowest in the country.
