Narendra Modi's Rally at Chatra

Chatra, March 27

BJP's Narendra Modi on Thursday said in Chatra town that this is the first election in which the country has decided on the result before even voting.

Modi was on a day's chopper-hopping visit to the state and addressed two pre-election rallies in areas with Maoist presence apart from a similarly troubled area in Bihar's Gaya.

Modi's visit coincided with a Maoist bandh in the state and at his first meeting of the day in Gumla, which falls within the Lohardaga Lok Sabha constituency, he told the crowds that he would like to see the hul - and not the bandook - in the hands of the rebels. At Chatra, he congratulated the crowd for turning up: "You have rejected them by coming here today." Incidentally, a Maoist bandh had been declared on Rahul Gandhi's last visit to the state, on February 7.

During his 35-minute speech at Chatra, accompanied by BJP candidate Sunil Singh, and flanked by Arjun Munda and Raghubar Das, Modi exuded confidence. "This is the first election when the country has decided the elections before voting. Otherwise, why should so many people assemble here on such a warm day? I bow before your effort," he said, without actually bowing. "After I form the government, I will ensure that your wait does not go in vain," he added.

Modi branded this election unique for the volume of support he has been receiving. "Usually, people come together to throw a government out of power. It is for the first time that people are coming together to say, "Modi ko makaan do." People are coming together to make Modi Prime Minister, to give Modi power," he said.

The lone Prime Ministerial candidate in the country had begun speaking as the first few rows of the crowd were involved in a scuffle with the police. Even though police personnel waved batons to drive them back, people managed to break through barricades and enter the area reserved for invited guests and the Press.

Modi's soon had the distracted crowd's attention and often sought responses from people assembled on all three sides of the podium. Dropping his voice, he did a good impression of Rahul Gandhi without naming him. "Other leaders will tell you, "Gareebi man ki awastha hai," and that is because they don't know poverty; they don't understand it. For such people, born with a silver spoon, poverty is a mere photo-op," he said.

In Gumla, he reminded the people that it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government that facilitated the formation of Jharkhand. At Chatra, he promised to complete a project that the same government began: "Vajpayeeji started work on the super thermal power plant at North Karanpura [in 1999]. My government will complete it."

Modi also touched upon Jharkhand-specific issues. "To save your youngsters who are migrating, save Hindustan first," he said. He constantly glanced at notes when talking about the state and was clearly briefed by the Jamshedpur-based Munda and Das, for there was a reference to the poor condition of the Ranchi-Jamshedpur road in faraway Chatra.

Modi ended with an exhortation. "Don't worry about the people with the bomb and the pistol; go vote on the 10th [of April]," he said.