Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a veiled attack on the opposition RJD in Bihar remarking that with electricity having reached all corners of the state, the days of lantern poll symbol of Lalu Yadav's party were over.
At an election rally, the prime minister congratulated Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi for making the same possible and also claimed that the electricity situation has seen a remarkable improvement in Jammu and Kashmir after it came under Governor's rule.
"These lalten (lantern) wallahs too could have brought electricity to the homes of the people while they were in power. But they were busy lighting up their own clan. Somebody was building a farm house, somebody was constructing a mall, somebody making money through railway tenders," PM Modi said in a veiled dig at the IRCTC scam which pertains to the period while Lalu Yadav was the Railway Minister.
His wife Rabri Devi, daughter Misa Bharti and son Tejashwi Yadav are among those named as co-accused in the case and a number of their alleged benami properties in Patna and the National Capital Territory region have been seized by investigating agencies in course of probe.
The PM was referring to power situation in Bihar during the 15-year rule of RJD (from 1990 to 2005) and now under NDA, when all the households in the state have been provided electricity connection by the end of last year.
Donning a Mithila paag (headgear), PM Modi began his 25-minute-long speech with a few sentences in Maithili wherein he recalled the regions glorious past which produced luminaries like King Janaka and poet Vidyapati.
He also promised that during his next stint in power measures would be taken to give a boost to fisheries and makhana (fox nuts) for which there was immense potential in the Mithila region.