It’s official. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Nitish Kumar will kick off National Democratic Alliance’s Lok Sabha campaign at a rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on March 3.

BJP president Amit Shah and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan, besides other senior NDA leaders, will also be present.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA partners have chosen the date as the Election Commission of India may notify the Lok Sabha election dates in early March.

State JD (U) president Bashistha Narayan Singh, at a joint press meet attended by BJP and LJP state presidents Nityanand Rai and Pashupati Kumar Paras, said, “The NDA will highlight people-centric initiatives taken under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the country and chief minister Nitish Kumar in the state.”

“It will be the mother of all rallies. We expect that the organisational strength of the three parties will be able to mobilise record public participation, which, we believe, will be facilitated by a favourable disposition towards the development work done by respective governments,” Singh said.

State BJP president Rai said that the NDA will compare work done by Opposition parties for 55 years at the Centre and in the state to the report card of  Modi and Nitish.

“The idea is to put things in right perspective before people so that they may be able to weigh UPA’s misinformation campaign on the balance of developmental work done by the NDA,” he said.

LJP state president Paras said the March 3 rally will be historic in terms of public participation in the last 30-40 years. “It is essentially an election rally and BJP president Amit Shah and other senior NDA leaders will be present. The ECI is likely to notify poll dates between March 6 and 10,” he said.

To a query whether the rally was being organised on March 3 to pre-empt the Opposition from organising a joint rally, the BJP state president said, “It is a Sunday and, as such, will not cause inconvenience to school children or office goers.” The Congress is slated to hold Jan Akansha Rally on February 3.

On Grand Alliance’s aim to pull off an impressive show, he said, “We have an excellent track record. We don’t fear the Opposition as we will expose them. We will win 40 out of 40 LS seats under the leadership of Nitish Kumar in the state.”

In a way, his reply put a stamp on who would be the face of NDA in the state. “It will be Narendra Modi at the country level and Nitish Kumar in the state,” Rai said. The CM has prevailed on the BJP to part with five of its sitting MPs in 17-17-6 seat share for BJP, JD (U) and LJP.

He, however, remained evasive on the participation of Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha, who attended Mamata Banerjee’s Kolkatta rally. He did not attend Sunday’s event. “Right decision will be taken at the right time,” Rai said.

First Published: Jan 28, 2019 08:41 IST