A day ahead of the counting of votes in Bihar assembly elections, Shiv Sena on Monday said there will be a change of power in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is part of NDA in the state, losing there just as Donald Trump did in the US. Predicting NDA’s defeat under Nitish Kumar, an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana also slammed the BJP over the Namaste Trump event in February 2020, when Donald Trump visited Ahmedabad and Delhi, amid coronavirus pandemic.
“Power has already changed in America. At the same time, the National Democratic Alliance led by Nitish Kumar is clearly losing in the Bihar Assembly elections. Even though ‘Namaste Trump’ [event] was held in India, the people of the US have bid goodbye to Trump and have rectified their mistake. In Bihar, signs of a power change are clearly visible,” the editorial said.
The Sena mouthpiece added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar did not stand a chance before Tejashwi Yadav and the people of Bihar had taken it upon themselves to bring in change. “People have taken Bihar elections in their hands. They did not kneel before PM Modi and Nitish Kumar. The crowds were soaring in Tejashwi Yadav’s rallies. At the same time, the country has also seen pictures of the lukewarm response of the crowd to PM Modi and Nitish Kumar during their rallies,” the editorial remarked.
It added that BJP and Janata Dal (United) had created jungle raj but the “People in Bihar have said ‘You leave first, we will handle jungle raj even if it comes’” and went on to praise the people of Bihar and the US.
The editorial slammed the government for spending crores in the time of a pandemic over Namaste Trump event in Ahmedabad earlier in February. “It cannot be denied that Donald Trump was invited to Gujarat in the middle of a pandemic and coronavirus spread because of the event,” it said, adding, “Now the people of America have ended ‘Trump’s infection’ forever.” It added that Trump was never suitable for the office.
