During his two-day visit to Bihar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has sought to weave the BJP’s narrative for the upcoming Assembly elections around triple Ms – Mahila outreach, Modi and Mandir – asking the party leaders and workers to counter the Opposition Mahagathbandhan’s campaign against the Election Commission (EC)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls with a “ghuspaithiya” (infiltrators) pitch.
In his meetings with the Bihar BJP’s rank and file, Shah also asked them to undertake a motorcycle yatra thrice a week through villages and tap the runners-up in panchayat polls to broadbase the party’s grassroots connection.
While reiterating that Chief Minister and JD (U) supremo Nitish Kumar would lead the NDA into the Assembly polls, Shah appealed to the BJP activists to ensure that the NDA retain power. However, there was no mention on whether Nitish should continue as the CM if the NDA returns to power, party sources said.
Winding up his Bihar trip Saturday, Shah met BJP leaders from eight districts of the Tirhut and Darbhanga regions in Samastipur. The meeting was attended by the BJP’s two Deputy CMs, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, state party president Dilip Jaiswal, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, and a slew of party leaders, including MLAs, MLCs, MPs and former legislators, from Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur and Vaishali districts.
At Samastipur meeting, Shah asked BJP workers to focus on all NDA seats, and not just BJP seats. A party leader, who attended the Samastipur huddle, said: “We were asked how we would respond to questions on SIR and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent Voter Adhikar Yatra. Then, Shah himself suggested that we should say Rahul wanted to protect ghuspaithiyas and was thus opposing SIR.”
On Friday, Shah held three meetings of the party leaders and workers, including one in Bettiah and two in Patna.
In Bettiah, he met party activists from the Champaran and Saran regions comprising districts of East Champaran, West Champaran, Saran, Siwan and Gopalganj. “He (Shah) asked party workers to take out march riding at least 11 motorcycles thrice in a week through the same set of villages. As we will get close to elections, motorcycle march would be a daily affair. Another important thing he said was to reach out to those leaders who were runners-up in the last panchayati raj polls,” said a BJP leader. Besides senior leaders, Bettiah MP Wanjay Jaiswal also attended this meeting.
In Patna, Shah held a meeting with the state party vice presidents, general secretaries and other functionaries along with senior party leaders from outside Bihar, which deliberated on the party’s campaign strategy.
“Shah told us to talk about labharthi schemes, especially women welfare schemes, of both Central and state governments, PM Narendra Modi’s strong leadership, and how the NDA government has been constructing Mata Janaki temple in Sitamarhi after having built Ram temple in Ayodhya. The focus would be on three Ms – Mahila, Modi and Mandir,” said a BJP leader, adding that one local leader would work in tandem with one non-Bihar leader for each of Bihar’s 40 districts, including 38 administrative and two police districts.
Shah also held meeting of the state BJP ‘s core committee, which was attended by senior party leaders including both the Deputy CMs and the state BJP chief. A BJP insider said: “Here, the party also discussed NDA seat-sharing including possible exchange of some seats with JD (U) and other allies for enhanced winnability. The party also held the first round of seat-wise discussion.”
Shah has already held similar region-wise meetings in Rohtas and Begusarai on 18 September. He started with the NDA’s “weakest” zones, Shahabad and Magadh, where the ruling alliance had lost all Lok Sabha seats (Buxar, Ara, Karakat and Pataliputra) to the Mahagathbandhan in the 2024 polls. The NDA had put up a poor show in these regions in the 2020 Assembly polls too.