Bharatiya Janata Party working President J P Nadda along with Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das takes part in a plantation programme at Pancha village near Ranchi on Sunday.

 

RAGHUBAR Das, who is on the verge of becoming the first Chief Minister to complete a five-year term in once politically-volatile Jharkhand, has set the BJP’s target for the Assembly polls due later this year - “Abki baar 65 paar”. In the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP had won 42 of the 81 seats. The BJP and its allies clinched 12 of the 14 seats in this year’s Lok Sabha elections.

 

 

“Abki baar painsath (65) paar (This time we will cross 65 seats). There is not an iota of doubt in people giving an absolute mandate to us. We will win by a thumping majority as the message of development under the leadership of Prime Minister Narenda Modi has percolated down to the masses,” Jharkhand Chief Minister Das told PTI in an interview. “Due to the solid foundation of development works, a BJP worker remains ever ready for elections.Whether in Jharkhand or other parts in the country, people have seen and accepted the politics of development under Prime Minister Modi,” he said.

 

 

Claiming that the opposition ‘mahagathbandhan’ will come a cropper in the ensuing polls, Das said that people of the State including the exploited, the downtrodden, the poor and the Dalits have seen development work and have “outrightly rejected the ‘power-hungry’ coalition formed with selfish ulterior motives”. The ‘mahagathbandhan’ managed to bag just two Lok Sabha seats this year -- JMM and Congress bagging one seat each -- while the rest of the alliance Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) failed to win any.

 

 

“Jharkhand citizens have shown the mirror to ‘mahagathbandhan’ in the Lok Sabha elections. They were stumped by NDA’s politics of development. This time too they will be given a befitting reply,” Das said. He is set to become the first ever Chief Minister of Jharkhand to complete a full-term after its bifurcation from Bihar on November 15, 2000. “I have complete faith that the double engine Government (at the Centre and State) has taken people to the path of development. Now development is reaching to villagers in far-flung areas. Basic necessities like electricity and water have reached inaccessible areas. Youths are getting employment,” he claimed. Each sector whether infrastructure, agriculture, women empowerment or skill development among the youth, is progressing fast, he said.