Bihar: Amit Shah, Nadda to visit Muslim-dominated region

PATNA: Ramping up its campaign against its divorced ally, Janata Dal (United), and its new partner Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided that Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party president JP Nadda will tour Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region of Bihar next month.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the media in Kishanganj on Monday that Shah will be on a two-day visit to Seemanchal region from September 23. On the first day, he will hold a public meeting in Purnea district followed by a meeting with officials and workers of the Bhartiya Janata Party in Kishanganj on September 24.

The BJP’s selection of the Seemanchal region as the starting point for its all-out attack on the formidable RJD-JD(U)-Congress-Left combination only shows that the party’s intention to play its nationalist card to the hilt during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had won its lone seat from Kishanganj.

It is expected that Nadda-Shah duo will attack Nitish and his government by creating hype on the suspected terror module operating in the Muslim-dominated region. In the 2020 assembly election, Hyderabad MP Asduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen won five seats in Seemanchal. However, four of them later joined RJD.

Currently, out of 24 assembly seats in the region, the Congress holds eight, the Rashtriya Janata Dal 
three and the CPI (ML) one, totalling 12. The region comprises seven districts, including Araria, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul, Purnea, Kishanganj and Katihar. There is 47% Muslim population in the region.